Sunday, 22 May, 2011:
The foreign ministry of France says four French nationals held by Libyan rebels on suspicion of spying have been freed.
A ministry statement Saturday said the four men were brought to Egypt and taken into the care of French consular officials.
The four worked for a private security firm and were detained by Libyan rebel forces in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi late last week. A fifth member of the group, Pierre Marziali, was shot at the checkpoint and later died of his wounds. Marziali was the founder of the SECOPEX security firm.
The French nationals are not the only foreigners who have been caught up in the unrest in Libya.
[VOA News] MoreSunday, 22 May, 2011:
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Libyan officials sounded an alarm Saturday over NATO bombings of three ports that they said would trigger a crisis by limiting the movement of supply ships carrying critical supplies in and out of the war-torn nation.
NATO jets destroyed eight Libyan warships in the ports of Tripoli, Al-Khums and Sirte after concluding that Col. Moammar Gadhafi had started using naval assets to lay mines and hamper international humanitarian aid, said Mike Bracken, NATO's military spokesman.
Libyan officials said, however, that the airstrikes violated the United Nations resolution mandating the protection of civilians. Amran al-Forjani, Libya's chief coastguard commandant, called the operation a "crazy attack."
[CNN] MoreSunday, 22 May, 2011:
The vehicle was stuck in a traffic queue in the town of Zuara, sixty miles west of Tripoli, when it was stormed by a crowd of about 50 civilians apparently angered about growing petrol shortages.
Only the intervention of Libyan security forces saved the journalists from being injured or killed.
Guy Desmond, a reporter for the Reuters news agency who was on board, said: "We were stopped opposite a petrol queue and the people in the queue were obviously tired and agitated. One guy came and kicked in the door of the bus, saying we'd been filming. Then a crowd of about fifty people tried to get on board. They wanted to drag us out. A soldier with an AK47 from a nearby checkpoint jumped in through the driver's door and tried to hold them back."
[Telegraph] MoreSunday, 22 May, 2011:
(CNN) -- Rights groups are calling for the release of the body of a South African freelance photojournalist and investigation into the role Moammar Gadhafi's forces played in his death in the Libyan desert.
The fate of Anton Hammerl, who had been missing since early April, came to light this week when two journalists detained by Libyan forces came forward after their release to say the 41-year-old had been shot six weeks earlier.
In a joint statement late Friday, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists accused Libya of deliberately withholding information about Hammerl.
[CNN] MoreSunday, 22 May, 2011:
Addis Ababa – The UN Security Council (UNSC) and the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) on Saturday demanded the immediate establishment of ceasefire in Libya.
A communiqué issued in Addis Ababa after a meeting by the two Councils which discussed and reviewed situations in Libya, Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire and Somalia called for an end to violence and attacks against, and abuse of, civilians and a solution to the crisis.
Mr Ramtane Lamamra, the AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, who declared the meeting open, however, said that there was no deadline for the demanded ceasefire.
[Vanguard] MoreSunday, 22 May, 2011:
A senior United Nations official is warning that Libya is a ticking time bomb and that life-saving assistance is needed, especially in the western part of the country. Little is known about what is happening in Tripoli, the nation's capital and Moammar Gadhafi's stronghold. To find out, VOA's Carolyn Presutti spoke to two opposition leaders - one in Tripoli, secretly via Skype, the other from Benghazi - as she shows us the daring actions activists take in Tripoli to advance their cause.
Libyan rebel troops, training in Benghazi, brazen enough at night to burn an effigy of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and emboldened by day to protest.
The rebels have such a tight control on Benghazi that they consider it their capital. And their recent capture of Misrata's airport gives them a fresh cache of arms.
[VOA News] More

Saturday, 21 May, 2011:
Sixty days after launching military action against Libya, President Obama on Friday sent a letter to Congressional leaders asking them to pass a resolution supporting the U.S. mission.
"I wish to express my support for the bipartisan resolution drafted by Senators Kerry, McCain, Levin, Feinstein, Graham, and Lieberman, which would confirm that the Congress supports the U.S. mission in Libya and that both branches are united in their commitment to supporting the aspirations of the Libyan people for political reform and self-government," Obama wrote. The 1973 War Powers Act (WPA) — the statute President Obama invoked when he launched forces in March — requires presidents to secure congressional approval for military operations within 60 days, or withdraw forces within the next 30.
[The Hill] MoreSaturday, 21 May, 2011:
A series of NATO airstrikes on Libyan government vessels left ships burned, battered and sunk in three ports Friday as the alliance sought to degrade the ability of Moammar Kadafi's regime to attack from the sea. The strikes came after alliance forces in recent weeks observed Libyan vessels threatening NATO ships and carrying out "indiscriminate mining" in sea lanes off the rebel-held city of Misurata, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said.
In Tripoli, foreign journalists were taken to the sprawling port area, where at least five vessels had been hit, including one that was sunk in the harbor and several that were scorched from fires. The strikes blew apart gun turrets, tore gaping holes in hulls and collapsed decks, sending debris and shrapnel across the docks.
[Los Angeles times] MoreSaturday, 21 May, 2011:
The New Zealand family of a South African photojournalist who was killed in Libya are struggling to come to terms with his death.
Anton Hammerl, 41, who lived in London, was shot in the stomach and abandoned in the Libyan desert by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi on April 5, family friend Bronwyn Friedlander said in London.
Two American journalists and a Spanish photographer, who were with him at the time, were taken captive.
His family believed Mr Hammerl was detained, but his colleagues confirmed his death after being released in Tripoli on Thursday.
"From the moment Anton disappeared in Libya we have lived in hope as the Libyan officials assured us that they had Anton," his family said in a statement.
"It is intolerably cruel that Gaddafi loyalists have known Anton's fate all along and chose to cover it up."
[Stuff] MoreSaturday, 21 May, 2011:
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon on Friday said the United States has sent Libya's anti-government forces ready-to-eat meals as part of the non-leathal aid it promised, and will provide supplies and uniforms in the near future.
Pentagon spokesman Dave Lapan announced that the U.S. has delivered 120,000 ready-to-eat meals that complies with religious traditions of that country to the rebel forces. The first shipment arrived in Benghazi on May 10.
Lapan said the United States will also deliver medical supplies, tents, uniforms, sandbags, flak jackets and other non-lethal aid " in the coming weeks," as part of the 25-million-dollar non-lethal aid the White House promised.
U.S. President Barack Obama in April authorized up to 25 million U.S. dollars in non-lethal aid to the opposition in Libya.
[Xinhuanet] MoreSaturday, 21 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI: Muammar Gaddafi's wife and daughter have fled Libya for Tunisia in a sign of mounting pressure on the dictator.
Safiya Gaddafi and her daughter Aisha had crossed the border ''a few days ago'' with a Libyan delegation, Tunisian security sources said.
They are said to be at a refugee centre on the island of Djerba. The departure, if confirmed, would be a serious blow to Colonel Gaddafi's embattled regime, already rocked by the apparent defection of the Oil Minister, Shukri Ghanem. Dozens of officials have left the country or abandoned the regime since the uprising began, including the Interior Minister, Ali Abdussalam el-Treki, a former foreign minister and a former UN ambassador, Abdel-Fatah Younes al-Obeidi, who worked closely with Colonel Gaddafi for decades, and a former justice minister, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, who is now the head of the rebel Transitional National Council.
[SMH] MoreSaturday, 21 May, 2011:
DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade has recognised Libya's Benghazi-based rebels as the legitimate opposition and said they should be given international support to lead the country's transition to democratic elections.
Senegal's position, made known after a visit by officials of the rebel delegation National Transitional Council, appears to go further than that of the African Union, which has urged a ceasefire but not gone as far as recognising the rebels.
"President Wade declared that he recognised ... Mustafa Abdel Jalil and the political forces he represents as the established and legitimate opposition, whose natural role -- with African and international support -- is to prepare republican institutions in Libya via democratic, free and transparent elections," a presidency statement late on Thursday said.
[Reuters] MoreSaturday, 21 May, 2011:
ADDIS ABABA — African Union leaders will gather for an extraordinary summit meeting next week to discuss the Libyan conflict, the organisation announced on Friday.
The meeting meeting will be held on Wednesday and Thursday at the bloc's headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, it said in a statement.
"The session will be devoted to the consideration of peace and security in Africa in light of the challenges and crises facing the continent," it said.
"The summit will provide an opportunity to review the situation in Libya on the basis of the work being carried out by the AU High-Level ad hoc committee on Libya."
Libya's Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi had called for a summit in April to find ways for the continent to fight "external forces".
[AFP] MoreSaturday, 21 May, 2011:
ZAGREB, Croatia — Croatia says it is expelling the Libyan charge d'affairs over activities deemed "inappropriate and contrary to the customary diplomatic practice."
The foreign ministry says Abdulkarim Naas has been informed that his diplomatic status will be revoked and asked to leave Croatia "within a reasonable timeframe."
Croatian media say Naas has recently criticized Croatia's support for a U.N. Security Council resolution that paved the way for international strikes on Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
Croatia's foreign ministry said late Thursday that it was maintaining diplomatic ties with Libya.
Croatia closed its embassy in Libya in March for security reasons. Diplomatic representation between the two countries has been at the charge d'affairs level.
[Canadian Press] More

Friday, 20 May, 2011:
FRIDAY MARKS the 60th day in which the United States has been involved in the U.N.-sanctioned military operation in Libya. The two-month anniversary confronts the Obama administration with a difficult question: Will it obey the law — specifically the War Powers Resolution?
That act, passed in 1973 in response to the Vietnam War, allows the president to commit troops to hostilities without congressional authorization for 60 days. Once he has reached that milestone, the president must get congressional approval or suspend operations. The act allows one 30-day extension but only to ensure the safe and orderly withdrawal of military forces.
[Washington Post] MoreFriday, 20 May, 2011:
WASHINGTON/TRIPOLI, May 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday it was inevitable Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi would have to leave power and only then could a democratic transition in the North African state proceed.
Obama was speaking in a major address about the Middle East where a series of uprisings this year have toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt, and inspired a three-month-old revolt in Libya that aims to overthrow Gaddafi after 41 years in power.
"Time is working against Gaddafi. He does not have control over his country. The opposition has organised a legitimate and credible Interim Council," Obama said in Washington.
[Reuters] MoreFriday, 20 May, 2011:
A Libyan government spokesman yesterday denied reports that Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's wife, daughter and top oil official had fled the country.
Days after the reports first surfaced, which claimed Colonel Qaddafi and his family were on the southern Tunisian island of Djerba, Libyan officials produced no evidence of the whereabouts of the three, raising new questions about Colonel Qaddafi's ability to hold together his entourage in the face of Nato bombing and pressure for him to quit.
Libyan rebel officials, as well as official sources in Tunisia, have also said that Shokri Ghanem, a former prime minister who runs Libya's oil sector, had left Libya via Tunisia.
[The National] MoreFriday, 20 May, 2011:
When Anton Hammerl decided to go to Libya at the end of March, he knew he would be working as a freelance photographer, with little support. He knew it would be one of the few conflicts he’d covered for years. And he knew he’d have to leave his wife in London with their newborn son.
He also knew he had to do it.
Early in April, Mr. Hammerl, 41, went missing in Libya. On Wednesday, four detained journalists — Clare Morgana Gillis, James Foley, Manu Brabo and Nigel Chandler — were released. There was no news of Mr. Hammerl. “Until I see him, I don’t believe any of these reports,” Penny Sukhraj, Mr. Hammerl’s wife, said by phone from London on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s just a recipe for emotional disaster.”
[New York Times] MoreFriday, 20 May, 2011:
ABC News' Sarah Burke reports: Moments after attending President Obama’s speech on the Middle East and North Africa at the State Department today the former Libyan Ambassador to the US, Ali Suleiman Aujali, gave a speech of his own on an elusive topic: What is next for Libya?
Aujali resigned as Libyan Leader Col Moammar Gaddhafi’s Ambassador to the US in February, quickly becoming instead the US representative for the Libyan rebels, who have been battling Gaddhafi forces with mixed success, since February.
Speaking today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in DC , Mr Aujali reiterated his call for the US to recognize his group, the Transitional National Council, as the new official government of Libya.
[ABC News] MoreFriday, 20 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - The United Nations is negotiating with Libya's government, rebels and NATO to stop fighting for 24 to 72 hours to allow food and medical supplies to reach civilians, especially in the west, its envoy said on Wednesday.
Panos Moumtzis, humanitarian coordinator for Libya, said he would also seek security guarantees for U.N. aid workers to reach the besieged city of Misrata and the Western Mountains in talks with authorities in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Friday.
"The humanitarian pause is driven by humanitarian principles and the need to be able to provide urgently needed life-saving assistance to the civilian population in distress," Moumtzis told a Geneva news conference before leaving for Tunis.
[Reuters] More

Thursday, 19 May, 2011:
Cairo/Tripoli - Four foreign journalists captured in Libya in early April were released from detention, but remained in Tripoli late Wednesday.
The chief photographer at the European Pressphoto Agency epa in Cairo told the German Press Agency dpa that the four journalists had contacted their families to notify them of their release on Wednesday.
One of the journalists was a photographer with epa, of which dpa is a shareholder.
The four, who include two US nationals and a Spaniard, were seized on April 5 after entering Libya across its eastern border. They were charged with illegally entering the country.
[M&C] MoreThursday, 19 May, 2011:
UNITED NATIONS, May 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations called for an additional 233 million U.S. dollars to help around 2.1 million civilians affected by the ongoing conflict in Libya, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters Wednesday.
As the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate in the North African country, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos warned member states of widespread shortages in resources.
"The conflict, the breakdown of state infrastructure, and shortages of cash and fuel are causing problems for the population of Libya," Amos said in Geneva on Wednesday.
"Widespread shortages are paralyzing the country in ways which will gravely impact the general population in the weeks and months ahead; particularly the poorest and most vulnerable," she added.
[Xinhuanet] MoreThursday, 19 May, 2011:
Eleven British trainers have joined "significant numbers" of military advisers from France and Italy to help the Libya's rebel Transitional National Council set up an operational command structure capable of taking on the Gaddafi regime.
A senior European diplomat, active in building ties with the Benghazi based rebels, said that the creation of a "joint operations centre" with the help of Western trainers had increased "military capacity".
"The main job is to coordinate and make more effective the processing of military and tactical information back to Nato so air operations are based on the best information available," he said.
The admission will fuel concerns that Britain could be drawn into mission creep in Libya and appears to contradict William Hague's assurance that military advisers would not be involved in training rebel fighting forces.
[Telegraph] MoreThursday, 19 May, 2011:
Mahmoud Jibril, the interim prime minister of the Libyan opposition government, is a desperate man with a fondness for medical metaphors. "If you're bleeding to death, you need a tourniquet, not another diagnosis," he told the diplomats, lobbyists and pro-democracy activists invited to a reception at the Libyan ambassador's elegant house in Washington, D.C., last Thursday.
This was the first official visit by Mr. Jibril and other representatives of the Transitional National Council (TNC) who are struggling to manage Libya's transition from 42 years of Moammar Gadhafi's dictatorship to a democratic future. The delegation left Washington over the weekend with lots of goodwill but without the "tourniquet" Mr. Jibril was seeking—access to $3 billion of the $32 billion in Libyan assets that the U.S. froze in February.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreThursday, 19 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya--Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi has boasted many times in the past that he's in the hearts of "millions of" Libyans and warned of "tribal wars" should he be ousted from power.
His opponents, the rebels who control Benghazi and all of the eastern part of the country beg to differ and in recent weeks have got together to show that there’s a Libya behind the boss in Tripoli.
"Our goal is for all Libyans to meet--and express to Qaddafi: whatever you do is a lie," said Hassan, a robe-swathed rebel fighter from the Qaddafi-controlled town of Zintan, declining to identify himself further.
Representatives from 23 of the areas that are still in Qaddafi’s sphere of control gathered in the rebel capital of Benghazi on a recent Friday to declare their support for the Interim Transitional National Council (TNC), the official name of the opposition coalition.
[Black Star News] MoreThursday, 19 May, 2011:
Why are the United States and Europe attacking Tripoli with bombs and Damascus with words? Why are they putting so much effort into bringing down Libya's brutal tyrant and so timid in their dealings with his equally cruel Syrian counterpart?
Let's start with an explanation that is as common as it is wrong: oil. Libya has a lot more of it than Syria and therefore the real reason for the military aggression against Libya is to take over its oil fields. The problem with this view is that if the West wanted reliable access to Libyan oil, Gaddafi was a far safer bet than the chaos and uncertainty resulting from NATO's armed intervention. Western oil companies operated without any major problems with Gaddafi and it is safe to assume that from their perspective there was no need for such radical regime change.
[Huffington Post] MoreThursday, 19 May, 2011:
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - One month after France, Britain and Italy sent military trainers to help the Libyan opposition in its fight against the Gaddafi regime, the EU is about to open its own liaison office in Benghazi to give more long-term, institutional support to the Transitional National Council (TNC).
"Our vision is that the UN and the EU will play a leading role in the post-Gaddafi period. A lot of work is now gearing up on what the priorities are, the interaction with the TNC, which has been very open to this, since they have very significant capacity issues," one European diplomat with first-hand experience of the matter told a group of journalists on Wednesday (18 May).
The diplomat, who asked not to be named, insisted that the rebels "are not a bunch of Al-Qaeda fanatics."
[Euobserver] More
[Euobserver] MoreThursday, 19 May, 2011:
When the U.N. Security Council voted in March to authorize international airstrikes on Libya, the women of the Herwees household in Cypress erupted in cheers and ululations.
Within minutes, Tasbeeh Herwees, a 19-year-old USC student, posted on her blog: "group hug everyone seriously so much love right now." "My friend called me and we were like 'God is great.' It was like someone had just gotten married," said Herwees, whose parents are both Libyan immigrants. "It was a very jubilant atmosphere."
In the weeks leading up to that vote, which authorized the U.S. and its allies to mount airstrikes in support of the uprising against Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, Herwees had tried to reconcile herself to the odd position in which she and other Libyan Americans found themselves.
"It was some weird alternative reality where you're asking people to throw bombs on your own country," she said.
[Los Angeles Times] More

Wednesday, 18 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - Tunisia threatened to report Libya to the U.N. Security Council if it fired into Tunisian border areas again, and a hospital doctor in rebel-held Misrata said seven people died in fighting there on Tuesday.
Libyan rebels and a Tunisian security source said the head of Libya's National Oil Corporation had defected and fled to Tunisia, an act that if confirmed would be a major blow to Muammar Gaddafi's efforts to cling to power.
Libyan state television said its forces had hit a NATO warship that was shelling targets in western Misrata, but a NATO official denied the report as "a totally fabricated allegation."
[Reuters] MoreWednesday, 18 May, 2011:
Libyan Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem has left the country, amid reports that he has defected.
Tunisian officials say Mr Ghanem - a former prime minister - crossed into Tunisia by road before going to the island of Djerba.
A spokesman for the Libyan rebels told the BBC the minister had defected, and was on his way to a European country.
The Libyan government said he had been on official business in Tunisia, but that Tripoli had lost touch with him. The BBC's Andrew North, in Tripoli, says that if Mr Ghanem's defection is confirmed, he would be the highest-level figure to go since Libya's former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa fled to the UK in March.
[BBC] MoreWednesday, 18 May, 2011:
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Rebel forces in the Nafusa Mountains of western Libya were under heavy attack Tuesday by forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi and had issued a call for help, the National Transitional Council said.
"Representatives have confirmed that Gadhafi forces are using GRAD missiles, snipers, and a previously unseen type of mortar," it said, adding that three locals were killed and another nine wounded on Tuesday.
The Tunisian border is a portal for the delivery of humanitarian aid, which can no longer reach civilians in the area, it said.
Pro-Gadhafi forces were also attacking the northwest Libyan city of Yafren, focusing on the hospital there, the statement said.
[CNN] MoreWednesday, 18 May, 2011:
The UN refugee agency said Tuesday that hundreds of displaced people have been crossing back into Libya from Tunisia and Egypt with the intention of boarding boats to reach Europe.
“Among them are refugees, including members of the Somali, Ethiopian and Eritrean communities in the camps at Choucha near Tunisia’s border with Libya,” UNHCR’s chief spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, told journalists in Geneva.
UNHCR is in discussions with these communities about the dangers involved in sailing the high seas as well as the risks people take in crossing the Libyan border. In March, UNHCR learnt from the Somali community in Choucha that two Somalis were shot dead in Libya after crossing back from Tunisia.
To date, around 14,000 people have arrived by boat in Italy and Malta from Libya. Of this number, 1,669 arrived on Friday and Saturday.
[Gozo News] MoreWednesday, 18 May, 2011:
Mohammed El Senussi is the opposite of Muammar Gaddafi: he's soft-spoken, nuanced, dresses in business suits and takes daily one-hour jogs to stay fit. El Senussi is also Gaddafi's main rival. Gaddafi deposed El Senussi's great-uncle, King Idris, in the 1969 coup that brought him to power. As the heir to the throne -- King Idris died in 1983 -- Crown Prince Mohammed may take over when Gaddafi falls.
Muammar Gaddafi didn't kill Libya's royal family: he didn't want to turn them into martyrs. Instead he forced them to live a lower-middle class life in Libya, for a while even in a shack. "It was very tough," says Crown Prince Mohammed. "Gaddafi treated our family very badly. But when I see how Libyan people are being killed as we speak, my problem is nothing. Innocent people are losing the lives because of one person. What's happening in Libya is not war; it's just one crazy person attacking people.
[Huffington Post] MoreWednesday, 18 May, 2011:
OTTAWA - Five Libyan diplomats working in Ottawa have been booted from their jobs and have to leave the country, according to Canadian Foreign Affairs.
"The activities carried out in Canada by the five Libyan diplomats are considered inappropriate and inconsistent with normal diplomatic functions," the department said Tuesday evening in a statement.
Canada has not cut off its diplomatic relations with Libya, according to a news release. It has, however, suspended operations at the embassy located in Tripoli. The Libyan Embassy in Ottawa remains open.
The diplomats and their families have been asked to make arrangements for departure.
Canada is taking part in the NATO mission, which has enforced a no-fly zone over Libya.
[Toronto Sun] MoreWednesday, 18 May, 2011:
Traveling the coastal route from Tunisia to Tripoli, Libya's capital, one thing became clear: One of Africa's largest oil producers has become home to some of the world's longest gasoline lines.
At some stations in western Libya, cars stretched for a mile or more during rush hour Monday afternoon, and in one case at least two miles. At several stations, the queues snaked through main avenues and onto side streets, blocking vehicles trying to get through. Men with rifles helped keep order, though motorists argued with one another and with the security personnel. Many stations had no gasoline to sell, yet the lines still stretched for blocks. In those cases, drivers simply left their vehicles and walked away, reserving a space until — or if — supplies were replenished.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreWednesday, 18 May, 2011:
MISURATA, Libya — The gravediggers worked methodically and with few words. By now their grisly labor was a routine. The corpses of the soldiers of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, wrapped in cloth or plastic sheets, had arrived in trucks. The men who would bury them sprinkled perfumed powder on the dead men’s burned or bloodied brows. Then they prayed. A quiet processional began.
The gravediggers carried each corpse over the sand and lowered it inside a waiting box. Each was placed right shoulder down, left side up. In this way, all of the dead men faced Mecca. At last the gravediggers closed and covered the tops of the boxes. Then came the wait for the next truck, which would bring more.
[New York Times] More

Tuesday, 17 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - The world's top war crimes prosecutor sought an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, accusing him of killing protesters who want an end to end his four-decade rule.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo also asked judges, who must now see if there is enough evidence to issue warrants, for the arrest of Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam and his spy chief brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi.
In the uprising, civilians were attacked at home, protests were suppressed using live ammunition, heavy artillery was used against funeral processions and snipers deployed to kill people leaving mosques after prayers, the prosecutor said on Monday.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 17 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya — Borrowing a page from Saddam Hussein’s old playbook, officials tied to the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Monday threatened to post “human shields” at telecommunications sites under threat of NATO bombing. The warning came a day after Britain’s top general was quoted as saying that NATO would have to broaden its bombing campaign to include infrastructure targets in Libya to prevent Colonel Qaddafi from “clinging to power.”
Barely 36 hours after The Sunday Telegraph in London published its interview with Gen. Sir David Richards, Britain’s chief of the defense staff, foreign reporters in Tripoli were summoned to a news conference at which Libyan telecommunication officials announced that they would deploy human shields.
[New York Times] MoreTuesday, 17 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Four reporters held for the past few weeks by the Libyan government will face trial and likely be released, a Libyan spokesman said late Monday. The identities of the reporters were not immediately available, but spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said they included at least two Americans and a Spaniard.
They will appear before a judge in an administrative court on Tuesday, Ibrahim said.
The spokesman said he did not believe the four would face a jail term. He said they were likely to be fined then be released. "It's not a big deal. They should be fined a certain amount of money …. and then they should be released," he said.
[USA Today] MoreTuesday, 17 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - The deal was struck in early April. Two weeks after the U.N. Security Council vote that saved rebel-held Benghazi from near-certain defeat, Libya's ragtag rebels agreed to the first shipment of oil from the chunk of territory they held.
The sale promised to bring in much-needed cash for their bid to set up a parallel Libyan government. If they could pocket just a portion of oil export revenues -- worth around $145 million a day on current prices -- they could also buy the weapons they needed for their fight against Muammar Gaddafi.
Bypassing the naval blockade and braving NATO bombs, the Liberian-flagged Equator sailed into the eastern port of Marsa el Hariga in the first week of April. There, it loaded up to one million barrels of the light, sweet crude so prized by refiners before setting sail through the Suez Canal for east Asia. Oil traders believed it would unload in China.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 17 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - Down narrow rubbish-strewn alleys or wedged between concrete buildings, an occasional Italian or Ottoman architectural gem hints at drab and dilapidated Benghazi's cosmopolitan past.
The decaying structures in the east Libyan city are a symbol of the neglect the people of the region say they suffered under Muammar Gaddafi, whose control of Libya's east was ended by mass protests and an armed uprising in February.
Now that his writ has ended, Benghazi can openly lament the damage and isolation that 41 years of his rule has wrought.
"There was once a beautiful Turkish souk here. I remember in the 1980s when the shopkeepers were forcibly evicted, some under gunfire, before it was demolished," said Abdullah Hassy, 43, who lives in what could be a stunning Benghazi square.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 17 May, 2011:
DOHA — Away from Benghazi, the stronghold of Libya's rebellion, dozens of Libyan journalists back the insurgency from the newly founded "Libya for the Free" satellite television in Qatar.
The host country, home also to Al-Jazeera television and an active partner in the NATO-led campaign enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, is the main financier of the rebel television.
"The aim of our channel is to inform the Libyan audience, which has been deprived for decades of proper information and subjected to propaganda" by Kadhafi's regime, said Mahmud Shammam, one of the channel's founders.
He said the television -- which was set up in March by Libyan opposition members and journalists -- will be based in Qatar "until the liberation of Tripoli."
[AFP] MoreTuesday, 17 May, 2011:
For the last two months, Dr. Hassan Mustafa has lived with two competing realities. As he has been immersed in his daily routine as a busy internal medicine specialist, in spirit the Yarmouth physician has been with his family in Libya. His countrymen are fighting to reclaim their nation from the dictatorship that has been headed by Moammar Gadhafi for four decades.
With Libya in the grips of an undeclared war, Dr. Mustafa is making preparations to return to his homeland early next month to help ease the suffering caused by the armed conflict.
Part of those preparations has included collecting medical supplies, desperately needed by those trying to treat the sick and injured in Libya. Although it has been just over a decade since he left Libya for a new life in Canada, he is still haunted by the casual brutality of the Gadhafi regime.
[Nova News Now] MoreTuesday, 17 May, 2011:
CAIRO May 16 (Reuters) - Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC), has defected from the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, Arab television stations reported on Monday.
It was not possible to immediately verify the reports and Libyan officials in Tripoli were not available for comment.
Al Arabiya television quoted sources in the rebel Transitional National Council as saying that Ghanem had defected and joined rebel ranks.
Al Jazeera also reported that Ghanem had defected and left Libya, but it did dnot give any details.
Ghanem denied in an interview with Reuters in late March that he had left Libya, after al Jazeera carried a similar report saying he had defected from the Gaddafi regime to Tunisia.
[Reuters] More

Monday, 16 May, 2011:
A network of Libyan defectors, including the former regime stalwart Moussa Koussa, are helping Nato to destroy Muammar Gaddafi's military sites, including bunker complexes from which much of the war has been run, according to senior officials in Libya.
Nato planners have stepped up their operations over the capital, Tripoli, and the western mountains in recent days, despite a strike on the eastern city of Brega early on Friday that killed up to 11 people, many of them Islamic clerics.
But British defence chiefs are applying pressure on other Nato countries to escalate the bombing campaign against Gaddafi amid deepening concerns that military action will end in stalemate.
[Guardian] MoreMonday, 16 May, 2011:
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) - A U.N. envoy held talks in Libya on Sunday as NATO warplanes kept up their bombardment of forces loyal to longtime strongman Moammar Gadhafi, Libyan government officials said.
The envoy, Abdul Ilah al-Khatib, visited Tripoli in hopes of negotiating a cease-fire between government and rebel forces, Libyan officials told CNN. No details were immediately released.
Meanwhile, Libyan state television reported that a fresh NATO airstrike hit the western city of Zuwara, near the Tunisian border. Tunisia's state news agency TAP also reported an airstrike on government troops and radar installations near the border, where thousands of refugees have been pouring out of Libya amid the conflict.
[CNN] MoreMonday, 16 May, 2011:
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - Tunisian official news reports said Sunday that the country's forces thwarted a push by 200 of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's troops into Tunisian territory and arrested two people suspected of links to al-Qaida.
Tensions have flared on the border in recent weeks as fighting in Libya has spilled over into Tunisia, which is struggling to restore stability after an uprising earlier this year that sparked revolts around the Arab world.
The Tunisian military sent tanks, armored vehicles and reinforcement troops to the Tataouine region on its southern border with Libya in response to the latest tensions Saturday, resident Mohamed Hedia told The Associated Press.
[AP] MoreMonday, 16 May, 2011:
BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhuanet) - Libyan opposition leaders have met in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, looking for ways to build a new government. Their meeting aims to bring together leaders from across the country, including areas still under the control of Muammar Gaddafi.
The head of the "Interim Transitional National Council" is urging delegates to help bring forward what he calls "a new Libya". An opposition spokesman, says the Transitional National Council will be completed to represent all Libyan people.
Mohamed Shebani, Opposition spokesman, said, "Everybody, everybody will be here, everybody will be represented so that in this way the Council will be legal, accepted.
[Xinhuanet] MoreMonday, 16 May, 2011:
To those harbouring hope the decade-old African Union is an improvement over its predecessor, the Organization of African unity, little evidence exits. The AU’s handling of this year’s conflicts in Libya and Cote d’Ivoire illustrates. In both countries, “The state is me” types sought to cling to power, ruthlessly. The AU responded the OAU-style, “a shaggy dog, but our dog,” figuratively speaking.
Eleven days ago, the AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping begged the Contact Group on Libya at a meeting Rome to support the AU and its High-level Committee’s efforts in Libya. The efforts aim at establishing peace, democracy, good governance, et al.
The committee comprises South Africa, Mauritania, Mali, and Uganda. The United States, the Arab League, and the European, with Britain, France, and Italy most hawkish, make up the Contact Group.
[Nation] MoreMonday, 16 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya - Towering above the Libyan capital’s coastline, the sleek silver Marriott Hotel opened three months ago as the latest symbol of the North African nation’s oil-fueled investment boom. Ten days after its Feb. 15 opening, however, it shut its doors as mass unrest engulfed the country and quickly turned violent.
The 36-floor tower, built to host foreign investors in a time when hope of economic growth abounded in Libya, sits empty. Almost overnight, what had come to represent a new Libya, replete with opportunities even under the oppressive rule of Moammar Gadhafi, morphed into a symbol of the country’s uncertain future.
Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal - Libyan economy battered New Marriott closes 10 days after opening
[MDJ] More

Sunday, 15 May, 2011:
PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy met Saturday with a Libyan opposition leader amid questions about the death of a French military contractor in a Libyan rebel stronghold.
The meeting also came amid questions about the future U.S. role in the NATO air campaign against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s forces. U.S. officials in Washington met Friday with Mahmoud Jibril, top representative of the Libyan Transitional National Council, before he came to Paris. Neither Sarkozy nor Jibril spoke after their meeting Saturday in Paris.
France has been a major backer of the rebels and has played a leading role in the NATO campaign.
[Washington Post] MoreSunday, 15 May, 2011:
President Obama is re-focusing U.S. efforts in Libya, amid reports that Moammar Gadhafi is struggling.
The president met Friday with the NATO Secretary General while his top national security adviser spoke with a prominent Libyan rebel.
Libya also figures to play a prominent role in Obama's big Middle East speech on Thursday. And the president is scheduled to discuss the NATO military action in Libya with the leaders of a Great Britain and France during his Europe trip at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Obama will soon need a congressional sign-off to maintain U.S. assistance in the NATO bombing campaign designed to protect Libyan citizens from attacks by Gadhafi's government.
[USA Today] MoreSunday, 15 May, 2011:
SEATTLE - There are several dozen Libyan students in our state and right now most of them are in limbo. Among the eager freshman at the University of Washington is Hamza Abdul Lahmen, from Benghazi, Libya.
"Seattle is a very lovely city," said the project manager major.
Hamza has done very well his first year, but he may not be able to enjoy Seattle for much longer.
"May is the last month," he said.
Hamza is one of dozens at the University of Washington who will lose their government support unless the situation in Libya changes.
Sumaya just moved from Libya to Seattle with her husband and three children to attend a graduate program at UW.
[King5] MoreSunday, 15 May, 2011:
PARIS — The French government says a French citizen has been killed at a checkpoint in the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
The Foreign Ministry says five French citizens were detained at a police check. One of the five was shot and died later in the hospital. The ministry did not identify any of the five.
Officials in Libya’s rebel administration say the victim was a French military contractor, and he was shot in the back Wednesday in unclear circumstances.
The sources in Benghazi’s interior security and the office of the administration’s spokesman spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to reporters.
[Washington Post] More

Saturday, 14 May, 2011:
LAMPEDUSA, Italy — The fishing boats from Tripoli began arriving in the clear light of morning and continued well into the day on Friday, unloading more than 1,000 immigrants to this tiny Sicilian island. Most who made the rough crossing were men in their 20s and 30s, but there were also dozens of women, some pregnant, and several babies, whose sharp cries pierced the fresh sea air. Others never reached here. More than 600 died last week when their unstable boat broke apart off the Libyan coast, and three unidentified African men died off the coast of Lampedusa on Sunday during a night landing in rough waters. Earlier this year, about 24,000 Tunisians traveled through Lampedusa, most seeking work in Europe. But now the situation has changed. More than 9,000 people have arrived from Libya since its unrest began.
[New York Times] MoreSaturday, 14 May, 2011:
Representatives of the Libyan Transitional National Council [TNC] met with President Barack Obama's national security advisor on Friday, as they continue to press for more aid in their fight against Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi. Libya also was a focus of talks that Obama had with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
National Security Advisor Tom Donilon met with the rebel delegation headed by Dr. Mahmoud Jibril. The president did not drop in on the talks.
A White House statement said the meeting was aimed at continuing "the close consultations" about the situation in Libya.
The statement said Donilon reiterated that the United States views the TNC as a legitimate and credible interlocutor of the Libyan people.
[VOA News] MoreSaturday, 14 May, 2011:
WASHINGTON — President Obama and his legal advisers are deliberating about how the United States military may lawfully continue participating in NATO’s bombing campaign in Libya after next week, when the air war will reach a legal deadline for terminating combat operations that have not been authorized by Congress. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a president must terminate such operations 60 days after he has formally notified lawmakers about the introduction of armed forces into actual or imminent hostilities. The Libya campaign will reach that mark on May 20.
Though Congressional leaders have shown little interest in enforcing the resolution, James Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, was asked Thursday about the deadline at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
[New York Times] MoreSaturday, 14 May, 2011:
Protests in Ottawa saw a skirmish on Friday afternoon as groups for and against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime confronted one another outside the country's embassy.
A pro-Gadhafi protestor was injured and treated in an ambulance, and an Ottawa RCMP officer hurt his leg and was taken to hospital.
Police took out their batons and broke up fighting between about 75 anti-Gadhafi protesters and a handful of people supporting the Libyan leader.
"We have the permission to say what we think is right for Libya today, and they came after us... and they attack us, they cross the street and they attack us," Gadhafi supporter Abdalla Ali said.
[CBC] MoreSaturday, 14 May, 2011:
After three days in Washington seeking financial help, the Libyan rebels’ finance minister is heading back to Benghazi with little to show for his effort other than expressions of “overwhelming support and sympathy.”
Such encouragement won’t pay for food, fuel and other necessities which are running short in the rebel-held part of Libya, Ali Tarhouni said in an interview.
“I am desperate,” said Tarhouni, who gave up his job teaching microeconomics at the University of Washington to return to his homeland to raise cash for the opposition. “I can repay you with really good interest and in a few weeks also.”
The U.S. has frozen about $34 billion in Libyan assets, part of the more than $165 billion in frozen Libyan assets worldwide. That money is, for now, beyond the reach of the rebels.
[Bloomberg] MoreSaturday, 14 May, 2011:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and NATO will continue military operations in Libya as long as Moammar Gadhafi keeps attacking his people, the White House said Friday as top U.S. officials met in Washington with leaders of the Libyan opposition.
President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Tom Donilon, met at the White House with a delegation from the Libyan Transitional National Council, including top representative Mahmoud Jibril. While the U.S. stopped short of recognizing the Council as Libya's legitimate government, as France and Italy have done, the White House said in a statement following the meeting that the Council is a "credible interlocutor of the Libyan people."
Obama did not meet with the opposition leaders.
[Seattle PI] MoreSaturday, 14 May, 2011:
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An international prosecutor said Friday he will seek arrest warrants next week for three top Libyan leaders on charges of murder and persecution during their attempts to crush the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, did not release the names of the suspects, but Gadhafi himself is expected to be among them.
Moreno-Ocampo revealed broad details of his investigation last week to the U.N. Security Council, but the announcement was the first time the court specified the charges — murder and persecution, considered crimes against humanity under the Geneva Conventions.
Prosecutors say their investigation has identified "three individuals who appear to bear the greatest responsibility for crimes against humanity" committed in Libya since Feb. 15, when Gadhafi's forces began a brutal crackdown on anti-government rebels.
[AP] MoreSaturday, 14 May, 2011:
In Benghazi, the beloved soccer club ran afoul of Moammar Kadafi and his soccer enthusiast son, Saadi. The result was the destruction of the team and its facilities more than a decade ago. It is one of Libya's oldest and most venerable institutions, predating not only Moammar Kadafi's rule but independence in 1951, and boasting what is perhaps the country's most fervent fan base. But in a police state where soccer served as a substitute for resistance, the lads from the Al Ahli sports club angered the wrong crowd: Kadafi and his soccer-besotted son, Saadi.
The club paid a steep price: Its grounds were demolished, its signature Al Ahli Benghazi soccer team was dissolved, its red-and-white colors were removed from public display. Dozens of supporters were sent to prison, with some sentenced to death for subversion.
[Los Angeles Times] More

Friday, 13 May, 2011:
NATO bombs hit government buildings in the Libyan capital Tripoli Thursday the same day NATO's secretary general visited Washington. A Libyan resistance leader, also visiting the U.S. capital, says the opposition needs more bombs, more often, to win the war against Moammar Gadhafi.
The warplanes struck early morning, attacking Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli. Libyan authorities took international journalists on a tour of the damage. and on a tour to a hospital where authorities said victims were being treated. Meanwhile in Washington, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen explained the alliance's mission in Libya, and its changing role in the world. "While NATO's past and present speak for themselves, the alliance future is not yet written," he said.
[VOA News] MoreFriday, 13 May, 2011:
Representatives of Libya's Transitional National Council will visit the White House on Friday. The Libyan rebel representatives will sit down with President Barack Obama's national security advisor.
The White House put out a brief written statement saying National Security Advisor Tom Donilon would meet Friday afternoon with Dr. Mahmoud Jibril, who is heading the delegation from the Libyan Transitional National Council.
There was no indication that the president plans to join the meeting, though Press Secretary Jay Carney hedged a bit on this, saying he did not know whether others may or may not be part of the meeting.
[VOA News] MoreFriday, 13 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya, May 12 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan opposition's spokesman said Thursday that the rebels are optimistic as more countries have recognized the legitimacy of the National Transitional Council, adding that lack of weapons is the major obstacle in fighting against the government troops.
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, NTC's Abdel-Hafed Ghoga said that several countries have recognized the legitimacy of the NTC, including France, Italy, Qatar, and Gambia.
Some countries and organizations such as the European Union, some Arab nations, the United States, Spain, etc., have sent envoys to Benghazi to assist the NTC, although they have not yet formally recognized the opposition's legitimacy, Ghoga said.
[Xinhuanet] MoreFriday, 13 May, 2011:
Within weeks of the first protests in February, Libyan forces opposed to Col. Moammar Gadhafi moved swiftly to establish a transitional government to challenge his authority.
Soon after, they took another step to advance their cause: They obtained a Washington PR firm. Now, Harbour Group is busy selling the story of the Transitional National Council of Libya, including helping to shepherd opposition leader Mahmoud Jibril around the nation’s capital this week as he meets lawmakers and delivers a speech today at the Brookings Institution think tank.
“It was an easy decision. It’s the right thing to do,” said Richard Mintz, a managing director at Harbour Group, which is providing its services free of charge to the Libyan opposition.
[Tucson Citizen] MoreFriday, 13 May, 2011:
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Twenty-eight-year-old Bashir says he used to have an idyllic life: A well-paid job as a software developer, good friends and comfortable surroundings in Canada.
"I'm a guy who smokes, listens to rock and roll, and enjoys my life," he says.
Now he's sleeping in a tent, eating rationed food and learning to shoot a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), among other weapons, in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in Libya.
Bashir is originally from the capitol Tripoli. His family members still live there. He is one of several men in a newly formed fighting unit made up of others who decided to return to their homeland to fight against Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
[CNN] MoreFriday, 13 May, 2011:
Colorado lawmakers on Wednesday called on the Obama administration to relax a freeze on Libyan assets — or extend visas - so that Libyan students aren't deported back to war-torn Libya.
But the administration made no commitment, and immigration agents said they have no plan to relax rules that might send the students home.
As many as 2,400 Libyans study in the U.S. — about 350 at Colorado universities and language schools — using Libyan government scholarship funds now frozen under the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers sanctions against Libya.
[Denver Post] More

Thursday, 12 May, 2011:
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Renewed bombing could be heard Thursday morning in Tripoli shortly after NATO jets were heard flying over the city.
The explosions came a few hours after Libyan state television broadcast video late Wednesday that it said showed Col. Moammar Gadhafi meeting earlier in the day with tribal elders in a hotel in the capital -- marking the Libyan leader's first public appearance in nearly two weeks.
"The leader met with tribal elders in Tripoli a few hours ago, and this proves the perseverance and permanence of the Libyan nation and its leader," the announcer said. "God willing, they are victorious."
The camera panned from a television program bearing the date May 11 to the group of more than a dozen men, including Gadhafi.
[CNN] MoreThursday, 12 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - Senator John Kerry said on Wednesday he was drafting legislation to authorize the transfer of available cash assets of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to a Libyan opposition group.
Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said there would be "a specific amount" for the Libyan opposition Transitional National Council, but he did not have the final number yet. The rebel group has said it needs up to $3 billion to keep going in the coming months as the fighting reaches stalemate.
"I am currently drafting legislation at the request of the State Department and the administration that will authorize the transfer of available cash assets to the council so that they will have available money.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 12 May, 2011:
OTTAWA — A new group of Canadian Forces pilots will be arriving in Italy within the next 10 days, part of a routine personnel shift that comes as NATO steps up strikes against forces loyal to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
There is also no indication that a ceasefire will take effect any time soon, despite UN calls for a halt to fighting to find a diplomatic solution to end the civil war.
A Canadian Forces spokesman said Wednesday that NATO has not provided any direction to Canadian troops to halt bombing as part of a ceasefire.
"We haven't received such guidance," said Brig.-Gen. Richard Blanchette. "We are continuing with our mission."
[Vancouver Sun] MoreThursday, 12 May, 2011:
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said "substantial progress" is being made in Libya amid claims of a military stalemate.
Speaking from Chicago, Mr Rasmussen said Nato had significantly degraded Col Muammar Gaddafi's military capacity.
"Time is up for the Libyan regime. It has no future. The future belongs to the Libyan people," he said.
He told the BBC's Katty Kay that the mission to defend the population in Libya would continue.
[BBC] MoreThursday, 12 May, 2011:
WASHINGTON — A key US senator warned Wednesday that Syria's bloody crackdown on anti-government protests was starting to look like the kind of violence that led to US-backed military strikes on Libya.
"The fact is that the violence has turned so indiscriminate in Syria lately that it's beginning to look like what motivated us to move into Libya, because we feared a massacre in Benghazi," said Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent.
Lieberman spoke as he and other senators unveiled a resolution urging US President Barack Obama to renew his sharp public criticisms of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad over his regime's use of deadly force against demonstrators.
[AFP] MoreThursday, 12 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - The revolution that swept Muammar Gaddafi from power in east Libya has been a bonanza for bookstores as curious readers stock up on titles banned during his decades-long rule.
Newly uncensored works on history and religion and books by opposition exiles are most popular, say booksellers in the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
"People are thirsty for knowledge, to know about their history," said bookseller Yusuf al-Muahaishi, who said sales had doubled since mass protests prised much of east Libya from Gaddafi's grip in mid-February.
"Books about the history of Libya were banned or censored. They mostly had to be about Gaddafi," Muahaishi said as he served customers at the al Tamour bookshop in central Benghazi.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 12 May, 2011:
The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved a resolution that would require the Pentagon to hand over all correspondence it had with Congress before the Libya mission.
The measure would, if adopted by the full chamber, direct the Defense secretary to give Congress all “copies of any official document, record, memo, correspondence, or other communication ... in the possession of the secretary of defense that was created on or after February 15, 2011.”
Panel Chairman Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.) noted some congressional leaders got a telephone call from senior Obama administration officials notifying them of the decision to launch military operations in Libya.
[The Hill] MoreThursday, 12 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - The thought of al Qaeda's Sahara wing getting its hands on Libyan surface-to-air missiles is chilling for the West. But a new flow of small arms and return of battle-hardened fighters may pose the bigger regional threat.
The fall-out southwards from the civil war in the North African country has so far been mainly limited to waves of returning migrant workers.
But governments in the Sahel believe fighters of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have received convoys of weapons including SA-7 missiles looted from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's abandoned arms caches.
Targeting airliners would take training and moving al Qaeda cells nearer cities, so experts believe any heavy weapons are more likely to be used defensively in case of airborne attacks on the Islamist militants.
[Reuters] More

Wednesday, 11 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya–A series of air strikes by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Tuesday hit command centers in Tripoli, while the alliance stepped up its campaign to halt Col. Moammar Gadhafi's advance on rebel-held areas by pounding government forces near the town of Ajdabiya.
In an operation that rebel commanders said was coordinated with NATO, rebel units equipped with Grad rocket launchers launched an attack westwards from Ajdabiya toward the oil town of Brega.
The rebels claimed to have destroyed 14 pick-up trucks belonging to Col. Gadhfai loyalists in the attack, but said that instead of advancing west following the battle, they immediately retreated to bait pro-Gadhafi forces into a trap.
A rebel commander said that NATO had told the rebels to pull back for about 12 miles after making the preliminary assault, in order to provide a zone in which NATO bombers could hit any target they could see.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreWednesday, 11 May, 2011:
UNITED NATIONS, May 10 (UPI) -- Conflict in the Libyan city of Misurata needs to stop so humanitarian supplies and investigators can reach the country, a U.N. relief official said.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 sanctioned military intervention in Libya to protect civilians from attacks from forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Valerie Amos, emergency relief coordinator with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council that all parties to the conflict in Libya must respect the lives of civilians and the international human rights regime.
"The reported use of cluster bombs, sea and land mines, as well as deaths and injuries caused by aerial bombing, show a callous disregard for the physical and psychological well being of civilians," she said in her remarks.
[UPI] MoreWednesday, 11 May, 2011:
The Libyan regime is confining international journalists to a five star hotel in Tripoli called the Rixos.
When reporters want to leave they need to take a government minder and a government translator.
"This is important so that you do not get hurt," one official told CNN when we requested to drive around town on our own. He insisted angry Gadhafi supporters might harm journalists because of the rage caused by NATO's bombing campaign over Libya.
This policy tries to create a sentiment of fear among the reporters and instill in them the notion that Tripoli is a Gadhafi stronghold where any journalist who tries to move on his own and ask questions will be turned in and arrested, and possibly held for weeks like several western reporters who remain in custody in Libya.
[CNN] MoreWednesday, 11 May, 2011:
GENEVA—Almost everyone on an overcrowded ship carrying some 600 African migrants to Europe is believed to have died when the vessel broke apart within sight of the Libyan capital, the United Nations said.
The U.N. accused the Libyan government of complicity in a rising number of deadly smuggling incidents, many involving workers from sub-Saharan Africa who had moved to Libya to find work before war broke out there in March.
International agencies say some recent migrants report being forced onto dangerously packed ships at gunpoint by Libyan soldiers. A spokesman for Moammar Gadhafi suggested that increased illegal immigration was the price European nations would pay for their military and political support of the rebels trying to topple Libya's strongman.
[Denver Post] More

Tuesday, 10 May, 2011:
The head of the United Nations humanitarian aid program said Monday that Libya is facing widespread shortages and she called for a pause in the fighting in that country to allow international aid agencies to address humanitarian concerns. The humanitarian aid chief at the United Nations, Valerie Amos, told the U.N. Security Council that the the breakdown of infrastructure, and shortages of cash and fuel are causing serious problems for the Libyan people. Amos said more than 746,000 people, most of them third-country nationals, have fled Libya. She said some 5,000 people are stranded at border points in Egypt, Tunisia and Niger. About 58,000 internally displaced people are living in settlements in eastern Libya.
[VOA News] MoreTuesday, 10 May, 2011:
QARYAT AZ ZURAYQ, Libya — Rebel fighters made significant gains Monday against forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in both the western and eastern areas of the country, in the first faint signs that NATO airstrikes may be starting to strain the government forces. In the besieged western city of Misurata hundreds of rebels broke through one of the front lines late on Sunday, and by Monday afternoon were consolidating their position on the ground a few miles to the city’s west.
The breakout of what had been nearly static lines came after NATO aircraft spent days striking positions and military equipment held by the Qaddafi forces, weakening them to the point that a ground attack was possible, the rebels said.
[New York Times] MoreTuesday, 10 May, 2011:
Representatives from 25 Libyan local councils have met in Abu Dhabi, expressing support for the uprising against long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi.
This is first time that leaders from councils and tribes in south and west Libya, away from the heartland of the rebellion in the east, have been able to meet. A representative from Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown, was among the delegates in attendance on Monday.
"As we continue our support for the 17th February uprising and, in defiance of the regime's claims, we announce unequivocally our allegiance to and trust in the National Transitional Council (NTC)," a statement said.
"In support of the struggle of the Libyan people to establish a modern civil society, (70) members of various local councils - which represent the different western, central and southern regions and tribes of Libya - have come together in Abu Dhabi".
[Aljazeera] MoreTuesday, 10 May, 2011:
Opponents to the rule of Libya’s leader Moammar Gadhafi are receiving payments from oil sales through a trust fund established in Qatar, according to officials familiar with the transactions.
A member of the oil and gas support group for Libya, confirming earlier reports about Doha’s role in the sales, said the payments for the Libyan crude are being made in US dollars through a bank account in Qatar.
The source said about 1 million bbl have so far been sold at $100 million. The money is being used by rebel forces to purchase basic commodities like food and other aid.
The oil and gas support group now has an office in Doha, and Qatar is helping to market the crude, with southern Europe being the main target market, the industry source said.
[Oil and Gas Journal] MoreTuesday, 10 May, 2011:
BANJUL — The Gambian high court on Monday granted an application allowing the government to seize millions of dollars worth of Libyan assets in the tiny west African country.
Judge Awa Bah ruled that the Gambian goverment can take immediate possession and control of the Libya African Investment Company "until a government recognized by the United Nations is in place in Libya".
While the assets were not named in court, the investment company owns a multi-million dollar five-star hotel, the Jerma Beach, the Laico Atlantic Hotel in the capital, Banjul, said to be worth $18 million (12 million euros), and Dream Park, a children's amusement park.
[AFP] MoreTuesday, 10 May, 2011:
ATLANTA -- NATO air strikes can’t protect Libyan civilians fully against Gadhafi forces, the multinational alliance’s leader said Monday.
“We can do a lot through air campaigns, but we cannot, 100 percent, guarantee that a roughish machine, like the Gadhafi machine, does not attack its own people,” said Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Snipers deployed by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi are able to evade the 5,500 sorties flown by NATO aircraft. Still, those attacks have taken out tanks, rocket launchers and command centers.
“By that, we have significantly degraded Gadhafi’s war machine, and we will continue as long as there are attacks against the civilian population,” Rasmussen said.
[RN-T] MoreTuesday, 10 May, 2011:
AMMAN, Jordan — A Jordanian finance official says the kingdom has frozen Libyan assets totalling about $500 million. Jordan also has frozen Libyan investments, mainly in the Amman Stock Exchange, of about $782 million.
The official says the freeze took effect five weeks ago in line with a U.N. Security Council request. He says it was not acknowledged to the press earlier because authorities were trying to locate all targeted Libyan assets.
The official insisted on anonymity Monday, citing the sensitivity of the information.
Libya's Moammar Gadhafi is a fiery critic of Jordan because of its alliance with the U.S. and diplomatic ties with Israel.
Jordan is helping to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.
[Canadian Press] MoreTuesday, 10 May, 2011:
The sanctions have included a ban on Americans dealing with Libya's state-owned investment company assigned to build a defense industry in the North African state. The company has already been working with Italy for aerospace production and maintenance.
"The United Nations and countries around the world are locking down the government of Libya's assets to prevent the Gadhafi regime from sponsoring further bloodshed," Treasury Department official Adam Szubin said.
[World Tribune] More

Monday, 9 May, 2011:
Tunis, Tunisia (CNN) -- Eman al-Obeidy, who garnered worldwide attention for her vocal rape allegations against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, says she has fled Libya, fearing for her safety.
Al-Obeidy told CNN that she crossed into Tunisia on Thursday with the help of a defecting military officer and his family.
She said she left Tripoli in a military car, wearing a head cover that hid everything except one eye.
Al-Obeidy said she entered at the Dahibah border crossing disguised "in the local manner" and was not challenged. She described the trip from Tripoli as "very tiring."
[CNN] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya—Col. Moammar Gadhafi has turned to Libya's tribal leaders in a new effort to erode a Western-backed insurgency, but the initiative, including the promise of an amnesty, is having no immediate impact on the stalemated conflict.
The rebel leadership dismissed an appeal by hundreds of tribal elders to engage in peace talks. And the tribal chiefs, who held a nationally televised conference in Tripoli, stopped short of pledging armed followers to back up the Libyan leader's military campaign.
Government forces attacked isolated rebel strongholds in western Libya over the weekend, striking a fuel terminal in rebel-held Misrata with ground-to-ground rockets and igniting a fire that threatened the besieged port city's fuel supply.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
WASHINGTON May 8 (Reuters) - The head of the NATO military alliance said on Sunday he was optimistic Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's "time is over," but said the conflict would require a political -- not military -- solution.
"We have stopped Gaddafi in his track. His time is running out. He's more and more isolated," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told CNN's "State of the Union" program.
Rasmussen said with the pro-democracy "wind change in North Africa and the Middle East," the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban under pressure in Afghanistan, he was "very optimistic" that "Gaddafi's time is over."
NATO coalition aircraft have been bombing Libyan government military targets and enforcing a no-fly zone since March under a U.N. resolution.
[Reuters] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
The African Union says its roadmap for peace is the best option for settling Libya’s political crisis.
El-Ghassim Wane said the AU “is convinced that only a political solution will make it possible to promote peace in a lasting manner that will also fulfill the aspirations of the Libyan people to democracy…and good governance.”
The AU plan calls for a ceasefire, and a dialogue between all Libyan parties for a solution to the crisis. It also calls for the protection of African workers in the country.
Wane said the proposal, which is geared towards achieving stability in Libya, is the basis for AU talks with both the administration of Moammar Gadhafi and the opposition National Transitional Council.
[VOA News] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
(RTTNews) - Russia and China have agreed to work together in addressing issues related to the ongoing popular uprisings in some countries in the Middle east and North Africa, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in Moscow on Friday.
"We have agreed to coordinate our actions using the abilities of both states in order to assist the earliest stabilization and prevention of the further negative unpredictable consequences there," Lavrov said at a joint news conference with Yang Jiechi after their meeting. The Russian Foreign Minister said the positions of Moscow and Beijing, as well as the United Nations, are based on the principle that "every nation should determine its future independently without outside interference."
[RTT News] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
SPLITS have opened in the Libyan opposition administration over claims that Italy is about to break the UN arms embargo and provide weapons to the rebel army.
With the ruling National Transitional Council deadlocked in its attempts to agree an executive committee, two of its most high-profile members have clashed over the most sensitive issue between the rebels and the West – weapons imports.
Last week, vice-president Hafeez Ghoga told The Irish Times that Italy would be sending weapons “within days” to rebel troops in apparent violation of the UN arms embargo, a claim flatly denied hours later by council president Mustafa Abdul Jalil.
[Irish Times] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
Critics decry his lack of a coherent 'doctrine', yet the president proves a careful reader of Samantha Power's book on genocide. As the fighting in Libya threatens to settle into a long civil war, President Obama's decision to intervene on behalf of Libya's rebels has come under increasing questioning. The death of Osama bin Laden in a firefight with American forces has bought the president more time, and so has the call by Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for Muammar Gaddafi to "immediately step down" as Libya's leader.
But what has not changed in recent weeks is the charge by President Obama's critics that, in Libya, he is pursuing a feckless foreign policy with no exit strategy in mind.
[Guardian] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
It is the unknown frontline in Libya's civil war, a rebel town besieged by Gaddafi's forces but almost ignored by the outside world.
Rockets and Scud missiles pour down. Water is running short. Tens of thousands are desperately trying to flee.
But transfixed by the horrors of Misurata, the international community - and the Nato military alliance - have all but overlooked the closely parallel drama in the mountain towns of Zintan and Yafran, little more than an hour's drive from the capital.
"We have been under fire for about an hour and a half now," said one Zintan resident, Mustafa Haider, by telephone from the town on Friday afternoon.
[Telegraph] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
Libyan government forces have launched what appear to be repeated indiscriminate attacks on mountain towns in western Libya, Human Rights Watch said today.
Accounts from refugees who fled the conflict say the attacks are killing and injuring civilians and damaging civilian objects, including homes, mosques, and a school. Human Rights Watch called on Libyan forces to cease their indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas.
Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 50 refugees from Libya's western Nafusa mountains in Tunisia from April 26 to May 1, 2011, as well as doctors and aid workers assisting those in need.
[HRW] MoreMonday, 9 May, 2011:
The nuclear materials found in Libya in 2004 were highly likely to have been produced by North Korea, U.S.-funded broadcaster Voice of America said Saturday, citing an interview with a former senior official of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
In the interview, Olli Heinonen, the former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said uranium hexafluoride, or UF6 ― used in uranium enrichment in Libya ― was very likely to have been made by the communist state.
Heinonen made the allegations based on North Korea’s purchase of parts to develop nuclear capabilities, information provided by Pakistan and other pieces of evidence.
[Korea Herald] More

Sunday, 8 May, 2011:
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi destroyed three huge fuel tanks in the besieged city of Misurata, aggravating an already dire humanitarian crisis there, the rebel leadership said Saturday.
The bombardment of the stored fuel could lead to critical shortages of gasoline for vehicles and fuel for electricity in the stricken city, said Jalal el Gallal, an opposition spokesman in Benghazi, the rebel stronghold in eastern Libya.
Misurata, the last major city in western Libya that remains in rebel hands, has been under siege from pro-regime forces for more than two months.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya : Troops loyal to Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi pressured rebels on several fronts on Saturday after helicopters violated a no-fly zone in the besieged city of Misrata, rebels said.
"It seems that the more desperate Gaddafi gets, the more he unleashes his firepower on the people," said Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the opposition National Transitional Council.
He said intensified shelling on Saturday struck the port city of Misrata and western towns near the Tunisian border, while loyalist fighters attacked the southern oasis towns of Ojla and Jalo, which neighbour oil facilities.
Ghoga said the escalation of violence reflected a knee-jerk reaction to increased political and economic pressure after France, Britain, and Germany expelled Libyan diplomats and a trust fund was set up for rebels.
[Channel News Asia] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
As Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's bloody offensive against Libya's popular uprising enters its third month, one of the most common questions is: "Who is behind the Libyan opposition?" The answer has been subject to rumour, speculation and misinformation, from allegations of ties to al Qa'eda and Hizbollah to suggestions of a tribal civil war.
In fact, the Transitional National Council (TNC), Libya's interim opposition government, has had to expend almost as much energy defending itself against falsehoods in the western media and political circles as against Col Qaddafi's military assaults.
[The National] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
Young people are heavily involved in the uprising now underway in Libya: They are members of the rebel military; they are working to help form a new government. They are also producing revolutionary artwork, publications and music.
On any given day you can find at least a few of Benghazi's young and restless in a large empty cement lot off one of the city's main thoroughfares. In the late afternoon, young men gather to see just how much tire rubber they can burn. Fishtailing Toyotas leave a smear of swirling, smoking, sticky blackness on the pavement. From a hotel room high above, the streaks appear like some kind of postmodern design.
[NPR] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
UK Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have restated their determination to enforce the UN resolution on Libya.
Downing Street said the leaders of the UK and France had agreed to intensify the pressure on the regime "militarily, politically and economically".
The call comes after Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy spoke on the phone on Friday.
It also comes as the allied military operation to protect civilians in Libya reaches the end of its seventh week.
[BBC] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
TUNIS May 7 (Reuters) - Tunisia warned Libya that it considered the shelling of a border town on Saturday "extremely dangerous" and said it would take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty.
Close to 100 shells or mortar rounds fell on or near the Tunisian border town of Dehiba on Saturday, causing no injuries but doing damage to one house, a Reuters witness said. The shelling sent residents scurrying for safety.
The town has been hit repeatedly by stray shells in recent weeks as forces loyal to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi battle rebels for control of the Dehiba-Wazzin border crossing.
[Reuters] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
DENVER - While Libyan rebels continue to battle the forces of Moammar Gadhafi, nearly 400 Libyan graduate students in Colorado are facing possible deportation. The Libyan government has decided to cut off all scholarship money to those students, which means they would no longer qualify for student visas in the United States.
Most of these students say they came to the U.S. with hopes of making their home country a better place.
"Back home in Libya, it's a dream to be free and express your opinion and express yourself," University of Denver student Jasem Rashwan said.
Many of the students brought their families with them to the United States.
[9 News] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI (BNO NEWS) -- Dozens of immigrants are feared dead after an overcrowded boat carrying about 600 migrants heading for Europe capsized off the coast of Libya, ANSA news agency reported Saturday.
The boat departed early Friday and it wrecked soon after, a few meters away from the coast. Sixteen bodies have been recovered so far, but the death toll is expected to be higher. Some of the migrants were able to swim ashore to safety. On Friday, Spanish maritime rescue services were looking for 22 would-be immigrants originally from North Africa after their boat capsized off the southern coast of the country. The missing included 19 men, one woman and two babies, while 29 had been rescued.
[Wire Update] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
The acting foreign minister of Libya's rebel government has canceled a visit to key ally Qatar after failing to get approval from Saudi Arabia to fly over its airspace.
Cairo airport officials say Ali al-Issaoui and three other officials from the rebels' National Transitional Council waited for 20 hours at the airport before flying back to eastern Libya Saturday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
They said they did not know the reasons for the Saudi refusal. Saudi officials were not available for comment.
[Seattle Times] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama thanked Kuwait's emir for the oil-rich country's "generous pledge" of $180 million to the Libyan opposition Transitional National Council.
Obama spoke by telephone to Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and also thanked him for Kuwait's "steadfast support" of US troops, the White House said in a statement.
"The president thanks the emir for Kuwait's generous pledge of assistance to the Transitional National Council of Libya and stressed the importance of such financial support to the opposition given their urgent needs," the statement said.
Kuwait on April 24 announced the pledge of "urgent humanitarian aid" to Libyan civilians, through the national council.
[AFP] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya, May 6 (UPI) -- Suggestions from the International Criminal Court that war crimes were committed by the Libyan regime aren't surprising, a rebel-backed council said.
The U.N. Security Council referred Libya to the ICC for alleged atrocities committed against unarmed civilians during February demonstrations. ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced Wednesday that he was calling on judges to issue arrest warrants for three unnamed individuals suspected of war crimes. The rebel-backed Transitional National Council in Libya announced that it was committed to helping the ICC bring justice to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and his backers in short order.
[UPI] MoreSunday, 8 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI: While Libyan rebels struggle to push the front line west, lawyers in the east are attacking satellite networks that air Muammar Qadhafi’s TV channels because they incite “hate and violence.”
“Qadhafi exploited the channels to transmit military codes,” said lawyer Issam al-Mawy, adding that when the Libyan strongman mentioned a city in one of his speeches, it was attacked shortly after by loyalist troops. “We have tons of footage and evidence,” he said.
A Libyan firm of six lawyers accuses regime broadcasters – including Al-Jamahiriya and Al-Jamahiriya 2 – of inciting hate and violence by painting rebels as terrorists seeking to split the country in two.
[Dawn] More

Saturday, 7 May, 2011:
(RTTNews) - France has ordered fourteen Libyan diplomats loyal to the regime of Colonel Moammar Qadhafi to leave the country within two days, the foreign ministry announced Friday.
The French foreign ministry in a statement said the 14 Libyan diplomats have been declared "persona non grata," and ordered to leave the country within 48 hours. However, the identities of the Libyan diplomats were not revealed.
France is one of the few countries that have formally recognized the leadership of the Libyan rebel movement , better known as the Transitional National Council (TNC), as the north African country's legitimate government.
[RTT News] MoreSaturday, 7 May, 2011:
Libyan forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi may be guilty of war crimes, Amnesty International said Friday. In a new report, the international watchdog described ongoing attacks against the civilian population in Misrata. Battles have raged through the streets of Misrata for more than two months now and Amnesty says in that time troops loyal to Gadhafi have unleashed a "truly horrifying" string of attacks against civilians.
Hundreds killed :
On Friday, the group published a report saying the total disregard for civilian lives is a clear breach of international law.
Donatella Rovera, a senior advisor at Amnesty is in Benghazi, the rebel stronghold in eastern Libya.
[VOA News] MoreSaturday, 7 May, 2011:
PULLMAN, Wa. — The civil war in Libya is about to inflict new casualties far from the battle zone – Libyan students studying abroad whose stipends are about to dry up as a result of the U.N. Security Council’s freezing of Libyan government assets.
More than 2,500 Libyan students studying in North America and Canada are facing an end to their funding next month.
Among them is Talal Amara, a 36-year-old graduate education student at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.
“To have enough money to stay here, I will have to sell my car,” said Amara, who lives with his wife and two young children. “It will only allow to me survive here another two to three months, but it is the only option for me.”
[MSNBC] MoreSaturday, 7 May, 2011:
US consultancy fails to register as Libya lobbyist :
A consultancy co-founded by the business writer and academic Michael Porter said on Friday it had been at fault in not registering as a lobbyist for the government of Libya.
Monitor Group, which was founded by Mr Porter and other experts previously at Harvard Business School, said on Friday it should have formally registered under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act for work it carried out for Libya between 2006 and 2008.
As well as announcing it would now register retrospectively for the work, the company said it would also register for more recent work for Jordan.
The move follows controversy at the London School of Economics, where Sir Howard Davies resigned as director in March after details emerged of the institution’s dealings with Libya – including a £2.2m payment to train Libyan professionals as well as a £300,000 donation.
[Financial Times] MoreSaturday, 7 May, 2011:
In eastern Libya, the spectral image of an elderly, bearded man in a skullcap or Bedouin cloak is everywhere — on bumper stickers and posters, military vehicles and checkpoints, even press IDs issued by the rebel government here.
"He is the godfather of all of us," said Salim Ismael, a retired army officer now training rebel recruits. "He is our inspiration, the spiritual leader of the Libyan revolution."
The figure is Omar Mukhtar, a 20th century resistance hero executed by Italian occupiers 80 years ago — and, improbably enough, depicted in a 1981 Hollywood all-star epic, "The Lion of the Desert," starring Anthony Quinn as Mukhtar. A box-office flop, the film has a devoted cult following here.
[Los Angele Times] MoreSaturday, 7 May, 2011:
MISURATA, Libya — Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi scattered antitank land mines on the port of this besieged city late Thursday night, threatening once more to close the city’s only route for evacuation and supplies, according to accounts of witnesses, photographs and physical evidence collected on the ground. The land mines were delivered by a Chinese-made variant of a Grad rocket that opens in flight and drops mines to the ground below, each slowed slightly and oriented for arming by a small green parachute, according to an identification of the sub-munitions by specialists who were provided photographs and dimensions of the weapons. The mines hit the port at 9 or 10 p.m. Thursday, after rockets were heard being fired on the city from the southeast.
[New York Times] MoreSaturday, 7 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI — Moamer Kadhafi's regime reacted angrily Friday to a decision by world powers to provide funding to Libya's rebels, asserting that plans to tap assets frozen abroad were "piracy."
Meanwhile, rebels were bracing for a ground assault by Kadhafi forces on the besieged western port city of Misrata as NATO warplanes struck regime targets further to the west.
The fund, agreed at a meeting of the International Contact Group on Libya on Thursday, is intended to provide an emergency lifeline to the rebels, whose provisional administration has no source of financing to replace receipts from oil exports, which have come to a virtual halt.
It will initially receive international donations. Blocked assets -- estimated to be worth $60 billion (40 billion euros) in Europe and the United States -- are to be used at a later date.
[AFP] MoreSaturday, 7 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI - Libyan tribal leaders meeting in Tripoli on Friday called for a general amnesty law for those who have fought in Libya's ongoing civil war, a statement said.
"The conference will work on a general amnesty law which will include all those who were involved in the crisis and took up arms," said the statement on conclusions from the National Conference for Libyan Tribes, which ended late on Friday.
"The general amnesty law is a means of laying the path ahead for a new era of peace and forgiveness," it said, without providing further details on the law, or a timetable for its passage.
Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim had said the tribal leaders at the conference represented tribes from across the country, including those from the rebel-held east.
[ABS] More

Friday, 6 May, 2011:
ROME — The Obama administration announced Thursday that it will seize a small chunk of the billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets in U.S. institutions and use it for humanitarian aid in Libya, in what officials called a fresh signal to the country’s leader, Moammar Gaddafi, that his resources are imperiled.
The move was disclosed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting here of Arab and NATO countries, which was called to show support for Libyan rebels, who have been trying to topple Gaddafi for three months. The 22 countries in attendance also agreed to set up a fund to manage donations to help the rebel-controlled areas. Kuwait has pledged $180 million, and Qatar said it would contribute at least $400 million more.
[Washington Post] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
Libyan rebels won a financial lifeline potentially worth billions of dollars from the United States and other allies on Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, attending a contact group meeting on Libya in Rome, also spoke of the need to increase pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, saying ousting him was the best way to help the population.
The NATO-backed coalition against Moammar Gadhafi said at a contact group meeting on Libya that efforts are under way to unlock billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets to provide assistance to cash-strapped Libyan rebels.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration is trying to free up some of the more than $31 billion it has frozen in Libyan assets.
[VOA News] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, ordered the explusion of two Libyan diplomats from its London embassy as he travelled to Rome to demand heavier military bombardment of Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime. By Rosa Prince, and Nick Squires in Rome 5:47PM BST 05 May 2011
Mr Hague called for the beginning of a final push to topple the beleagured regime in Tripoli, more than seven weeks after a UN Security Council resolution authorised military action to protect civilians. "The tempo of military activity should continue to be increased, as it has been increasing in recent days," Mr Hague said. "A great deal has been achieved. Probably thousands of lives have been saved. We now need to intensify that in order to push through to a successful outcome."
[Telegraph] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
(RTTNews) - Halyna Kolotnytska, a Ukrainian national and a former private nurse of embattled Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi, is currently in Norway and has sought political asylum in the Scandinavian country, news reports quoting officials said Thursday.
Kolotnytska was one of four Ukrainian nurses working for Qadhafi. She, along with 185 others, was evacuated from Libya by the Ukrainian military in February, soon after the revolution against Qadhafi's autocratic regime began in the north African country.
She arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kiev from Libya on February 27. Until her surprise arrival in Norway in March, she is reported to have stayed along with her daughter and mother in an apartment complex in the Ukrainian town of Brovary near Kiev.
[RTT News] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
As the Deputy Chairman of Libya's Transitional National Council, Abdelhafed Ghoga has the uneasy task of governing a country wrecked by civil strife. Magharebia sat down with the rebel spokesman in Benghazi where he described how the rebels were working to re-establish order and rebuild basic functions of a democratic state. He also described how Libyans view the UN intervention and the antipathy some feel towards countries that opposed the no-fly zone.
Magharebia: With the outbreak of the February 17th uprising, many state institutions in Libya were destroyed. How are you working to rebuild law enforcement capacity and protect citizens?
Abdelhafed Ghoga: In fact, right after the start of the February 17th revolution, the first thing we did – even before the formation of the Transitional Council itself – was to form local councils in all the cities.
[Magharebia] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on Libya's state broadcaster and two other government-owned companies, Xinhua reported.
The Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control ( OFAC) identified Libyan Jamahiriya Broadcasting Corporation, Dalia Advisory Ltd. and Lafico Algeria Holdings as subject to sanctions.
The Libyan state broadcaster owns several radio and television stations in the North African country, Dalia is a London-based investment firm that is 100 percent owned by the Libyan Investment Authority, while Lafico is an Algeria-based subsidiary of the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company, the Treasury said in a statement.
It said the latter two were identified by OFAC as Libyan government entities on March 15.
[Trend] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
Madrid (CNN) -- Spain denies it has officially recognized the Libyan rebels' transitional council as the legitimate leadership of Libya, despite sending a diplomat to talk to them, a Spanish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Thursday.
"There has been no change in our position," said the spokeswoman, who by custom is not identified.
The Libyan rebels earlier said that Spain, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands had recently recognized the rebels' interim Transitional National Council. Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands have also denied an official recognition.
Spain still has an embassy in Tripoli, although it evacuated its personnel from the city, like many other nations, as fighting between the regime of Moammar Gadhafi and rebels intensified in late March.
[CNN] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
THE HAGUE (Netherlands) - THE Netherlands on Thursday denied it had recognised Libya's rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), as announced earlier by the NTC.
'We haven't formally recognised the council,' Dutch foreign ministry spokesman Ward Bezemer told AFP.
Libyan rebels earlier said in Benghazi that Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands had become the latest states to recognise the council, set up to rival the regime of Muammar Gadaffi. The rebels later added that Canada had also recognised the NTC.
But speaking from Rome, where Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal joined talks at the International Contact Group on Libya, Mr Bezemer said the NTC announcement had taken the Netherlands by surprise.
[Straits Times] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK - Denmark on Thursday denied it had formally recognised Libya's rebel National Transitional Council, as announced earlier by the NTC.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that "in response to news reports that are incorrectly suggesting that Denmark has formally recognized NTC," its official position on the rebel's council had not changed.
"Denmark recognises - in accordance with the decision of the European Council - the NTC as a relevant dialogue partner," it said.
"It is believed that there are other political actors in Libya that could potentially be involved in order to ensure an inclusive process," the ministry said.
[Asia One] MoreFriday, 6 May, 2011:
BRUSSELS, May 5 (Reuters) - Libya's food supplies could run out within six to eight weeks unless plans are put in place to avoid a full-scale humanitarian crisis, the head of the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday.
Supply concerns are particularly acute in the rebel-held east of the country, where the interim authorities are struggling to buy and distribute food, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in an interview.
"The challenge in Libya is that this is a centrally controlled food system that was run by the government, and it's not being restocked now. That whole system could run out of food in six to eight weeks," Sheeran told Reuters in Brussels.
[Reuters] More

Thursday, 5 May, 2011:
Ministers from the NATO-backed coalition against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi meet in Rome on Thursday seeking ways to get money to rebels who are desperate to buy food and medicine and shore up their administration.
The meeting of Libya Contact Group will bring together foreign ministers from countries including France, Britain, the United States, Italy and Qatar as well as representatives of the Arab League and the African Union.
As the conflict in Libya has ground into stalemate, the rebel Transitional National Council, which controls the region of eastern Libya around Benghazi and has been recognised by both France and Italy, has appealed for loans of up to $3 billion.
But efforts to unblock state assets frozen in overseas accounts, or to allow the rebels to get past UN sanctions that prevent their selling oil on international markets, have been held up.
[Aljazeera] MoreThursday, 5 May, 2011:
TRIPOLI, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo will submit requests, during the coming few weeks, to ICC judges to issue arrest warrants against some Libyan officials thought to be responsible of war crimes in Libya.
Ocampo will refer an eight-page report Wednesday to the UN Security Council (UNSC) over his investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed recently in the troubled Libya.
The report may not reveal exact names, yet names of Libyan Leader Muammer Gaddafi and his son Saiful Islam will be mentioned in the first arrest warrant to be issued by the court preliminary, said Al-Arabiya that obtained a copy of the report.
[Xinhuanet] MoreThursday, 5 May, 2011:
The killing of Usama bin Laden by U.S. forces is likely weighing on the mind of another leader who many believe is also responsible for a deadly terrorist attack against Americans: Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi.
Qaddafi, who is suspected of ordering the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland that killed 270 people -- most of them Americans -- is currently fighting to preserve his 42-year dictatorship in Libya. NATO is leading an air war against his army in support of rebel forces, and on Saturday, a NATO missile strike killed Qaddafi's son and three of his grandchildren.
But a military stalemate continues and Qaddafi has vowed to never surrender.
Sunday's raid on bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan -- in which a small team of special forces dropped in by helicopter and shot the world's No. 1 Public Enemy in the head -- may give Qaddafi something more to think about, but foreign policy experts say it isn't likely to persuade the Libyan leader to back down.
[Fox News] MoreThursday, 5 May, 2011:
ROME (AP) — Italy pledged on Tuesday to seek an end date for NATO's Libya operations as Premier Silvio Berlusconi sought to placate a key government partner opposed to Italian participation in the bombing missions.
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters that Rome "will try, along with international organizations, and until, until I'm proven wrong, NATO, and its allies, to set an end" date for the operations.
Rome recently agreed to allow its warplanes to participate in NATO bombing missions as a way to increase pressure on the Libyan regime of Moammar Gadhafi.
Government officials quickly offered reassurances that Italy was fully committed to its role in the NATO operation.
[AP] MoreThursday, 5 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - Just a few months ago, Benghazi police Colonel Abdallah Shweiter spent his time dealing with orders to silence Muammar Gaddafi's critics. These days, he's busy doing what his real job was all along -- hunting down thieves, crooks and stolen cars.
"Earlier, the police worked to serve the political order and security was second," he said. "But now we do what we should be doing, which is helping people, keeping them safe and secure. Now we respect people, we're trying to show we care about them."
Shweiter described his new work under the blackened ceilings of his police station, a building with partially destroyed walls and windows coming off their hinges after protesters torched government buildings when the Libyan uprising began.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 5 May, 2011:
VIENNA May 4 (Reuters) - Austria has frozen around 1.2 billion euros ($1.78 billion) in funds that authorities think could be linked to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's inner circle, a top central bank official told Reuters.
Austrian National Bank Governor Ewald Nowotny had cited that figure in February as the overall amount of Libyan assets in the Austrian financial system, but officials had not previously confirmed how much of it was actually blocked.
"The amount that has been frozen is in the order of magnitude of the figure mentioned by the governor," Austrian National Bank Director Andreas Ittner said on the sidelines of a central bank news conference on Wednesday.
He did not give any details about the funds' owners.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 5 May, 2011:
AJDABIYA, Libya —The halls of the main hospital here are eerily quiet, the mattresses rolled up on folding beds. Stretchers are stacked in storage closets. Doctors and nurses sit and wait.
Over the past two weeks, Al Magaryaf Hospital emptied out as a city that was once an intense battleground became a ghost town. Rebel fighters are now lying in wait in pockets of the city. Others stand watch at Ajdabiya’s western gate, and farther west along the highway, scouting for signs that forces loyal to Moammar Gaddafi might be headed their way.
Some of the volunteer warriors who had rushed to join the uprising have moved back to Benghazi, the de facto capital of the opposition-held east of the country, for the training they badly need.
[Washington Post] MoreThursday, 5 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — Newspapers and magazines are mushrooming in Libya's rebel capital Benghazi where a new generation of media entrepreneurs, unshackled from government censorship, is thriving.
The son of Fathi al-Jahmy, a prominent pro-democracy Libyan dissident who died after going into a coma while in solitary confinement, is chipping into Panorama, a multi-lingual weekly newspaper, as its political reporter.
"My father had many principles that I hope to advance," said Ahmed al-Jahmy.
Jahmy, a young man in jeans and black T-shirt, looked around nervously during an interview, unconvinced that the prized new-found freedom is a given or that the regime's spooks were truly gone.
[AFP] More

Wednesday, 4 May, 2011:
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- An explosion rocked Benghazi's main square on Tuesday, prompting witnesses to say it was the work of the country's longtime strongman, Moammar Gadhafi.
A rebel spokesman used a speakerphone to address a crowd that gathered after the incident, calling the explosion a terrorist act by Gaddafi fighters who allegedly infiltrated Libya's rebel-held eastern city.
CNN could not independently confirm that statement.
Witnesses said two cars were damaged in the square, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Small arms fire could be heard immediately after the explosion, but that quickly subsided.
The incident occurred two days after government forces pounded rebel-held areas in Tripoli, in the wake of Libyan authorities reporting that a NATO air-strike killed one of Gadhafi's sons and three of his grandchildren.
[CNN] MoreWednesday, 4 May, 2011:
Senior Libyan officials face international arrest warrants for crimes against humanity, the United Nations security council will be told today.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is to brief the council about crimes committed by Muammar Gaddafi's forces since the Libyan uprising began in mid-February.
Western diplomats say the move is intended to ratchet up international pressure on Tripoli. Ocampo revealed that up to five warrants are likely to be issued in the next few weeks with the approval of the ICC's pre-trial chamber.
No names have been disclosed. But Al-Arabiya TV reported that the warrants could include Gaddafi himself and his son, the discredited reformist Saif al-Islam, who has strong UK links.
[Guardian] MoreWednesday, 4 May, 2011:
BRUSSELS, May 3 (Xinhua) -- A senior NATO military commander on Tuesday denied there was a stalemate in Libya and urged more patience for the alliance's mission.
"A mission of this type is a deliberate mission and therefore takes time... Everyday something positive happens. With our airstirkes, with our arms embargo, with our protection of the Libyan people, we take step closer to the final objective we have to reach," Italian Vice Admiral Rinaldo Veri said via video conference from Naples, Italy.
"I personally don't think there is a real stalemate. Let's say that we are going slowly but steady... We are still moving forward, " he said.
The commander, who is responsible for the naval element of the operation, also said that following neutralizing Gaddafi's front forces, NATO is now targeting ammunition depots, logistic lines, command and control centers and lines of communication.
[Xinhuanet] MoreWednesday, 4 May, 2011:
LOS ANGELES, May 3 -- UK Prime Minister David Cameron, following reports that the Libyan government has been illicitly importing gasoline from Italy, called for tightening sanctions on oil and products against the North African country.
“We actually think there are opportunities for tightening sanctions over things like oil and oil products to make sure this regime comes to its senses and realizes it cannot go on terrorizing its own people,” Cameron told Parliament.
“So we are going to be looking in the coming days to stepping up the action we are taking as well as encouraging others to enforce what has already been put in place,” he said, calling it “unacceptable” for countries to help Libya’s embattled leader Moammar Gadhafi get around sanctions.
Cameron’s statement follows recent reports the Libyan government, exploiting an apparent loophole in United Nations’ sanctions, imported gasoline in early April from Saras, Italy’s third-largest refiner, which has the 300,000 b/d Sarroch facility on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia.
[Oil and Gas Journal] MoreWednesday, 4 May, 2011:
Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy is planning a 'friends of Libya' conference to chart out a political future for the country, beyond the rule of Moamer Gaddafi, a French news magazine reported Tuesday.
In an interview with L'Express weekly, extracts of which were posted on the magazine's website, Sarkozy said France would organize 'in the coming weeks' a 'large conference ... to build the country's future.'
He did not specify when or where such a conference would be held, but said it should bring together 'all the political components' of the country, 'including, if necessary, members of Gaddafi's regime, on condition they have broken away from him and have no blood on their hands.' The international military campaign against Gaddafi's regime is coming under increased criticism for failing to dislodge the belligerent leader after a month and a half of bombardments.
[M&C] MoreWednesday, 4 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, 3 May 2011 (IRIN) - Medical specialists in the Libyan city of Benghazi are struggling to work as lack of funding for supplies and equipment seriously hinders their efforts.
"The conditions here are bad," said Zainab al Beidi, manager of Benghazi's only public rehabilitation centre designed for patients suffering from spinal injuries or recovering from strokes.
There were 65 long-term residents at the centre, but when IRIN visited, it was clear that patients' recovery prospects were limited by a severe lack of equipment.
"We do the simplest things with whatever we have available, but I constantly feel we are not able to do enough," Al Beidi said. "The best we can do is to offer diapers and wheelchairs, and we don't even have enough of these. We have terminal cases that should be treated abroad, but how can we send them there?"
[IRIN] MoreWednesday, 4 May, 2011:
Benghazi is more than just the de facto capital of Libya’s rebel forces. It is the nerve center of the newspapers and magazines that are mushrooming here as a new generation of entrepreneurs enjoys the freedom of airing their voices long suppressed by Muammar Qaddafi’s regime.
Ahmed Al-Jahmy, 27, is one example of that voice. The son of a prominent pro-democracy activist who died after falling into a coma while jailed in solitary confinement, Mr. Jahmy is a political reporter at Panorama, a multilingual weekly newspaper.
“My father had many principles that I hope to advance,” the young man, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, told Agence-France Presse. He appeared nervous as he looked around during the interview, not wholly convinced that the new freedom actually existed.
[Alarabiya] MoreWednesday, 4 May, 2011:
Khalid Elhasumi, a manager in charge of Microsoft’s operations in Libya, was freed from detainment last week, the company confirmed today. Elhasumi had been held by Libyan authorities in Tripoli since March 19, after protests and then civil war broke out in the embattled North African nation. The Redmond-based company had been working with international organizations to secure Elhasumi’s release, The Associated Press reported last month. Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos had no information to share other than the confirmation.
[Seattle PI] More

Tuesday, 3 May, 2011:
(Reuters) - International Criminal Court investigators have proof that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces committed crimes against humanity, and the court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said on Monday he would soon ask for up to five arrest warrants.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously in February to refer Gaddafi's violent crackdown against anti-government demonstrators to The Hague-based ICC and Moreno-Ocampo said his first recommendations for indictments should reach ICC judges within weeks.
"We have strong evidence on the beginning of the conflict, the shooting of civilians," he told Reuters in an interview, noting that killing unarmed civilians would qualify as a crime against humanity.
"Also, we have strong evidence of the crime of persecution," he said.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 3 May, 2011:
More than a thousand people have filled the streets of Tripoli as a coffin said to contain the body of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son was carried through the capital.
Saif al-Arab Gaddafi was reportedly killed along with his three children by a NATO air raid on Gaddafi's compound on Saturday night.
Residents crowded around the hearse on Monday, chanting "Revenge, revenge for you, Libya'' and flashing victory signs as a coffin adorned with a green cloth was taken out of an ambulance that had slowly inched its way into the sea of people.
"The people want revenge for the martyr!" the crowd shouted, amid chants of support for the Libyan leader.
[Aljazeera] MoreTuesday, 3 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — Turkey closed its embassy in Tripoli on Monday, apparently spooked by the angry crowds that have threatened the embassies of NATO countries after the NATO airstrike that reportedly killed a son of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi and three of his grandchildren. Since the airstrike on Saturday night, Qaddafi supporters have vandalized or torched the Italian, British and American embassies, which were already shut, and ransacked United Nations buildings, forcing officials there to withdraw.
“In light of recent changes in the security conditions in Libya and emergence of the potential security risks, we took an important decision last night to temporarily evacuate our embassy in Tripoli,” Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s Foreign Minister told reporters in a live broadcast in Ankara.
[New York Times] MoreTuesday, 3 May, 2011:
(RTTNews) - The second meeting of the Libya Contact Group will be held in the Italian capital Rome this week.
The Rome meeting will build on the last Contact Group meeting held in Doha and will allow the United States to discuss with its international partners the ongoing implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions 1970 and 1973, the U.S. State Department said.
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will conduct a series of bilateral meetings, including with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, President Giorgio Napolitano, and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini during the three-day meeting that begins on Wednesday.
[RTT News] MoreTuesday, 3 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya, May 2 (Reuters) - Rebels controlling Libya's east are in talks for loans from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, a spokesman said, as they scramble to avoid running out of funds as the Libyan conflict drags on.
The Benghazi-based rebel interim national council has scraped together enough cash to pay salaries for public workers in April but will struggle to meet May expenses without a fresh injection of funds, spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga said.
"Without the use of the frozen assets or at least loans that will have frozen assets as collateral, our finanical situation will be quite critical," Ghoga told reporters.
"February and March we had no problems, April I think we just about managed it, but if we don't get any financing for May we will be in difficulty."
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 3 May, 2011:
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has vowed to stay in the country, as reports claimed up to 30,000 people may have been killed in the internal conflict that has gripped the north African state.
‘‘I’m not leaving my country," Gaddafi said in a televised address on Friday night. ‘‘No one can force me to leave my country."
He also called for negotiations to stop the coalition’s air strikes against his country. ‘‘The door to peace is open.
ou are the aggressors. We will negotiate with you," he said.
Gaddafi’s words came just days after the US ambassador to Libya estimated that up to 30,000 people may have been killed in the conflict over the past three months.
[The Post IE] MoreTuesday, 3 May, 2011:
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The top church official in Libya said he was praying to Blessed John Paul II for peace and an end to civilian casualties in the North African country.
Bishop Giovanni Martinelli of Tripoli also questioned the morality of the NATO airstrikes against the residence of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The attack April 30 reportedly killed one of Gadhafi's sons and three of his grandchildren, but the Libyan leader was said to be unharmed.
"The bombs, as precise as the aim can be, lead to civilian victims. Bombs are immoral. I wonder also whether it is moral to kill a head of state. What right do we have to do so?" Bishop Martinelli told the Vatican missionary news agency Fides April 30.
[Catholic News] MoreTuesday, 3 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — Moamer Kadhafi pumping petrol into a winged camel, Kadhafi with the tail of a snake and a forked tongue, Kadhafi as Dracula.
The flamboyant Libyan strongman is fuelling a flourishing cartoon caricature scene in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
Those are just a few of the themes produced by a group of young artists who reached not for their guns but for their coloured pens and spray cans when Libya's revolution kicked off in mid-February.
One of them paid for it with his life, gunned down by secret police.
The group now goes by the name of their dead colleague, Qais al-Halali, and continues its work from a ramshackle office in a makeshift media centre next to the rebel headquarters on the city's seafront.
[AFP] More

Monday, 2 May, 2011:
Libya's ambassador to the UK has just hours to leave the country after being expelled, as Colonel Gaddafi's government said it regrets the damage caused to foreign embassies in Tripoli. Foreign Secretary William Hague said Omar Jelban was "persona non grata" and had been given 24 hours to leave the country after the diplomatic missions of a number of Nato states were targeted by Gaddafi loyalists.
Angry mobs trashed the embassies of Britain and Italy, a US consular department and a United Nations office, Libyan deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim acknowledged.
He said that the damage would be looked into by the Libyan government and repaired.
[Sky News] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
The Libyan government was quick to announce the deadly accuracy of a NATO missile strike on the compound of Moammar Gadhafi, but rebel leaders today said the claims that four Gadhafi family members were killed are a publicity stunt by the flamboyant strongman.
The government announced early today that the dictator and his wife had survived a NATO attack on his compound, but that Gadhafi's son Saif al-Arab was killed, along with three of Gadhafi's grandchildren, all younger than 2 years old.
A government spokesman said it was positive proof that NATO is focused on trying to kill Gadhafi, not merely neutralize his military capabilities, as the alliance has said.
"This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country," Moussa Ibrahim, Libyan government spokesman, said at a news conference today.
[ABC News] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
GOP senators on Sunday defended the air strikes that hit a house where Col. Moammar Gadhafi was staying, with one senior lawmaker calling for greater U.S. involvement to force the Libyan leader’s ouster.
The missile strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization missed Gadhafi but killed his youngest son and three grandchildren, a Libyan government spokesman said.
The move was “obviously an attempt to remove Gadhafi’s command and control,” Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday. “If you view Qaddafi himself as part of the command and control, I think you could argue that if he was in one of those places, then it would be part of it…And if he is killed or injured because of that, that’s fine.”
Sen. McCain said the U.S. had “taken a back seat role” to NATO, which is “running out of some of their munitions” in the operation.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
She closely watched the events unfold during the recent Egyptian revolution, hoping the tide of protests would spread to Libya. She demonstrated outside the Egyptian consulate alongside Egyptians, knowing they would do the same when the time came for the Libyan people to break free.
And when it did, the 19-year-old American-Libyan University of Houston freshman started planning weekly demonstrations to stand in solidarity with the Libyan revolution. Hadeel Bunkheila along with two friends, Yasmeen Esaklul and Nadeen Mustafa, founded the local group Libyans for Liberty to raise awareness and organize events in support of the Libyan revolution.
[Chron] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
(TRIPOLI, Libya) -- Violence in Libya continued on Sunday, with the United States Embassy in Tripoli coming under attack.
Three buildings on the U.S. Embassy compound were reportedly attacked by individuals who appeared to be Libyans loyal to Moammar Gadhafi. A senior U.S. official said that one of the buildings was set on fire; however, fire crews were reportedly able to respond and extinguish the blaze. It is not quite clear just how much damage was caused by the fire. The other two U.S. Embassy buildings attacked are now reportedly being occupied by Libyans.
No Americans were inside the buildings at the time of the attack, as the U.S. had pulled embassy employees out of Tripoli in February.
[WTMA] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
Libya’s eastern opposition and Colonel Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, are both stepping up their attempts to woo tribal leaders, hoping that the support of influential clans and families will tip the balance in Libya’s revolution.
The rebels received a significant fillip last week when leaders and representative of 61 major Libyan tribes gathered in Benghazi, the rebel capital to the east, to declare their support for the opposition movement.
“Faced with the threats weighing on the unity of our country, faced with the manoeuvres and propaganda of the dictator and his family, we solemnly declare: nothing will divide us,” the tribal leaders said in a statement.
[FT] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya, May 1 (Reuters) - Rebels controlling eastern Libya have boosted security at oil fields, but other time-consuming measures are needed before they can resume crucial exports, an oil official said.
The rebel-held Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco) halted production at its Misla, Nafoora and Sarir oilfields after Gaddafi loyalists attacked Misla and Sarir in early April.
The three fields had produced about 400,000 barrels per day before the rebels rose up against Muammar Gaddafi's four-decade rule in mid-February.
Rebels have exported three shipments of crude since the uprising, and the storage facility at the Tobruk export terminal near the Egyptian border is now empty.
[Reuters] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
MISURATA, Libya — On the night he would die, Muhammad Abdulhamid Sbikhee, a night watchman at a local school, was at home with his wife and their seven children. They shared a small, ground-floor apartment that opened to a tiny yard that opened in turn to an urban dirt alley. Misurata had been shelled for several weeks running, and Mr. Sbikhee, a quiet man with a thick gray beard, was both worried and prepared, a neighbor and his wife said.
His children’s two bedrooms faced the direction from where many of the high-explosive shells and rockets from the forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had been fired. Around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, when more shells began landing and exploding in his neighborhood, Mr. Sbikhee and his older son sent his children, ages 1 to 17, to the other side of their apartment.
[New York Times] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is to attend the Libya Contact Group meeting in Rome for talks on ongoing implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
The group comprises Western countries, Turkey, Arab states, the UN, the Arab League and NATO and was set up in London on March 29.
Mr Rudd, vocal in urging firm action against the Libyan regime, is scheduled to attend the Rome meeting on Thursday as a full participant following an invitation from Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and Qatar Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani.
[SMH] MoreMonday, 2 May, 2011:
WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Rome next week for fresh talks on how to help the rebels fighting in Libya and protect civilians caught in the cross-fire, US officials said Friday.
The talks will focus on how to supply arms to the rebels battling Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi and whether to allow them to sell oil on international markets, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has said.
"Clinton will travel to Rome, Italy May 4-6 to participate in a meeting of the Libya Contact Group," the State Department's acting deputy spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.
This will be the second official meeting of the contact group after one in Doha on April 13, which was attended by leaders of the Libyan opposition's shadow government, the Transitional National Council.
[AFP] More

Sunday, 1 May, 2011:
Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi survived a NATO airstrike in the capital that killed one of his sons and three of his grandchildren, a government spokesman said on state television Saturday.
Killed was Saif al Arab Kadafi, 29, said government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim. He said the Libyan leader and his wife were in the house at the time, but that both survived the North Atlantic Treaty Organization strike.
"Western nation crusader aggression against the Libyan nation continued and proved again that it has no moral foundation," Ibrahim said in Tripoli. State television showed scenes of heavy damage to a structure, but it did not identify the site as Kadafi's sprawling compound in the capital.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreSunday, 1 May, 2011:
BENGHAZI (Libya) - FORCES loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Saturday stormed the oasis town of Jalo, south of the rebel bastion of Benghazi, killing five people, a military official said.
'There were five killed and more than 10 wounded,' said Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani, military spokesman for the Libyan opposition Transitional National Council, based in the eastern city of Benghazi.
He said the casualties were all rebel fighters who had defended the town. 'There was strong resistance from the rebels,' said rebel Aisa Sunus, 40, a chicken farmer turned freedom fighter who travelled four hours by car to reach Benghazi and deliver the news.
He said Jalo was back under control but that the neighbouring town of Jalo, had fallen to Gaddafi's forces, a report Bani confirmed. 'Some Gaddafi troops were killed but they took the bodies with them so we do not know how many,' Mr Sunus said.
[Strait Times] MoreSunday, 1 May, 2011:
ZAWIYAT AL-MAHJOUB, Libya (AP) — The wail of an ambulance signaled the start of what one doctor at the small village clinic called the "gush."
The first of a flood of wounded were two Libyan rebel fighters whose legs had been mangled in a blast and one of the clinic's own medics, who staggered in with a gunshot wound in the back that streaked red across his white coat.
As rebels push Moammar Gadhafi's forces back to the edges of the frontline city of Misrata, the fighting is turning rural medical centers in villages like this one into battlefield clinics. Their staff, more accustomed to distributing medicine and handling minor outpatient cases, are now performing trauma surgery.
[AP] MoreSunday, 1 May, 2011:
BANI WALID, Libya—Almost every street, public building and hillside in this town nestled in a rugged valley southeast of the capital Tripoli has a billboard pledging allegiance to Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
"Bani Walid is your shield, sword and arm," reads one. The only sign of the brief anti-Gadhafi protests in February is the faint outlines of graffiti on some storefronts that have now been painted over.
But behind a seemingly unflinching facade of support for Col. Gadhafi, a high stakes struggle is under way within Libya's largest tribe, Warfalla. Its clan leaders are debating whether to definitively back the government or to throw the tribe's lot behind rebels in Misrata and Benghazi farther east, who have many Warfalla members in their ranks.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreSunday, 1 May, 2011:
Zambia has frozen the 75% stake of Libyan company LAP Green Networks in Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel), the country's largest telecommunications company, with the largest fixed-line network and a growing presence on the mobile market.
The freeze is in compliance with United Nations Security Council resolutions on Libya.
LAP Green is owned 100% by the Libya Africa Investment Portfolio, known as LAP, which in turn is wholly owned by the Libya Investment Authority, that country's sovereign wealth fund.
The company recently assured customers that the freeze will not affect its operations. Managing director Hans Paulsen said in Lusaka on April 15 that customers need not worry as the company would continue to operate normally and government.
[Times Live] MoreSunday, 1 May, 2011:
KUWAIT: Kuwait's embassy in Libya is cooperating fully with the Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) in the distribution of humanitarian relief aid to people in Libya affected by the adverse conditions there, said Kuwait's ambassador in Libya Mubarak al-Adwani, after a meeting he had yesterday with KRCS's chairman Barjas Humoud Al-Barjas.
The Kuwaiti aid has been ongoing ever since fighting broke out in Libya, he said in a press statement, noting that the KRCS was among the first relief aid organizations that arrived on the Libyan soil, particularly in the area of the Libyan-Tunisian border, where droves of Libyan refugees had amassed to cross the border to safety.
[Kuwait Times] More

Saturday, 30 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya - Libya’s government threatened Friday to prevent humanitarian aid being delivered by sea to Misurata, on the same day as NATO said it had intercepted Libyan government vessels trying to lay anti-ship mines in the harbor.
“This is another demonstration of Gaddafi trying to completely ignore humanitarian law,” Brig. Gen Rob Weighill said, speaking via the Internet from the Naples headquarters of NATO’s Operation Unified Protector. The vessels were driven back by the threat of a NATO attack, he said. Libya’s government says the port, which it has repeatedly shelled, is also being used by the rebels to deliver arms and “terrorists” to Misurata.
[Washington Post] MoreSaturday, 30 April, 2011:
Washington - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will attend an international meeting on Libya hosted by the Italian government next week, the State Department said.
The gathering of the so-called Libya Contact Group is a follow-up to a meeting held April 13 in Doha, Qatar. The gathering comes as NATO-led operations continue against Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's forces, with the goal of protecting civilians under a UN mandate.
US President Barack Obama this week authorized 25 million dollars in non-lethal aid to Libyan rebels.
Clinton will hold a separate meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and other top Italian officials.
[M&C] MoreSaturday, 30 April, 2011:
(Reuters) - The U.S. envoy to the United Nations told the Security Council on Thursday that troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were increasingly engaging in sexual violence and some had been issued the impotency drug Viagra, diplomats said.
Several U.N. diplomats who attended a closed-door Security Council meeting on Libya told Reuters that U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice raised the Viagra issue in the context of increasing reports of sexual violence by Gaddafi's troops.
"Rice raised that in the meeting but no one responded," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. The allegation was first reported by a British newspaper.
Pfizer Inc's drug Viagra is used to treat impotence.
[Reuters] MoreSaturday, 30 April, 2011:
United Nations: War-torn Libya is at the risk of food security crisis in the next two months, the United Nations World Food Programme has warned.
"WFP stresses that the country's food security system has been severely disrupted and the country is unable to import enough food, due to disruption of port activities and the lack of fuel," UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Thursday.
"It also says that immediate steps must be taken to increase the flow of commercial goods, to replenish stocks of food and inputs for local production, and to maintain social safety nets," he added.
Daly Belgasami from WFP had earlier echoed a similar warning in Geneva.
"We are really concerned about the food security of the population," Belgasami, WFP's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa said.
[IBN] MoreSaturday, 30 April, 2011:
The United States is not planning to begin a ground operation in Libya, senior Russian senator Mikhail Margelov said after talks with top U.S. diplomats, defense and intelligence officials in Washington.
"As I understand, the Americans are ready to help the people in Benghazi to create some institutions, but it's clear that Washington cannot imagine its participation in any kind of ground operation [in Libya] even in a nightmare," Margelov, who heads the foreign relations committee of the Russian parliament's upper house, told Russian journalists on Friday.
The provision of military assistance to Libyan rebels has also been out of the agenda, he said.
[Rian] MoreSaturday, 30 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya For 13 years, a real-life medical drama has vexed Benghazi, tracing the contours of Moammar Gadhafi's reign over Libya:
A public health crisis. A politically motivated witch hunt. Faulty science. Conspiracy theories. Prisoner abuse. Geopolitical gamesmanship. And, at its heart, more than 400 children who found themselves infected with HIV.
Now, the revolt in eastern Libya has raised the possibility that the truth in the case of the Benghazi Six will come out.
"There is something missing in this story, and if things change in Tripoli, many secrets will open up," said Ali Bin Jalil, a pediatrician who was working at Al Fateh Hospital in Benghazi in 1998, when it was hit with the biggest hospital-borne outbreak of HIV in history.
[Charlotte Observer.] MoreSaturday, 30 April, 2011:
With each progress the revolutionaries make, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi loses ground. Feeling that a defeat might be more imminent than he expected, Colonel Qaddafi is now seeking all the support he can garner. The tribes can be his only remaining hope.
Following a statement issued by a forum of East Tripoli tribes, which condemned the revolutionaries as saboteurs, speculation has been rife about the role tribes will play in the next stage of the revolution in Libya.
“We call for penalizing all those who engaged in vandalism and all those who sought the help of foreign powers or facilitated military intervention in Libya,” said that statement. “Those have committed high treason.”
[Alarabiya] MoreSaturday, 30 April, 2011:
Prague, April 27 (CTK) - The Czech Republic will terminate the health care cooperation agreement signed with Libya in the 1980s, the government decided Wednesday, spokesman Jan Osuch has told journalists.
Czech diplomacy says the Czech state does not want to continue providing Libyans with free necessary treatment of acute illnesses or injuries the agreement guarantees.
Czechs have the same possibility in Libya, but they do not use it.
The Czech Republic spent almost 719,000 crowns on health care for Libyan citizens last year and about 815,500 crowns in 2009.
However, the Czech Health Ministry does not have finances for this.
Libyan tourists will have to have common travel health insurance in the Czech Republic.
[Prague Monitor] More

Friday, 29 April, 2011:
A NATO airstrike in the besieged rebel-held city of Misurata mistakenly killed 12 Libyan rebels, an official with the transitional government confirmed Thursday, while new fighting was reported on Libya's western border with Tunisia.
The strike Wednesday was at least the third reported friendly fire incident since North Atlantic Treaty Organization fighter jets began pounding forces loyal to Moammar Kadafi more than five weeks ago in a mission to protect Libyan civilians.
Leaders of the anti-Kadafi forces have labeled the incidents unfortunate accidents in a worthy cause, reflecting wide support in rebel ranks for the NATO strikes.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreFriday, 29 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya—Libyan government forces drove rebels from a border outpost Thursday, the Tunisian state news agency reported, shutting off one of their vital supply lines, pursuing them across the mountainous frontier into Tunisia and provoking a sharp protest from that country.
After a day of fierce combat, the rebels were trying to regain the outpost near the Libyan town of Wazen. The two sides exchanged artillery fire into the evening, causing panic among Libyan civilians trying to flee to Tunisia, according to reports from the area.
Tunisia voiced "extreme indignation" to Col. Moammar Gadhafi's regime over what it called an incursion by Libyan forces, the Foreign Ministry said.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreFriday, 29 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — One shows a Libyan soldier in a green uniform killing a pro-democracy demonstrator. Another depicts bloodied body parts outside a pickup truck destroyed by NATO aircraft. A third — a dead fighter's casket draped in a red, black and green rebel flag.
Twelve-year-old Leena al-Bishari's colorful drawings provide a glimpse of Libya's violent uprising against Moammar Gadhafi through the eyes of a child.
These drawings and others like them on display at a grade school in Benghazi, the de facto capital of rebel-held eastern Libya, illustrate the psychological toll that more than two months of fighting has had on Libya's children, said volunteers who recently set up a program at the school to help kids deal with the war.
[AP] MoreFriday, 29 April, 2011:
UNITED NATIONS — The United States on Thursday raised allegations that Moamer Kadhafi's regime gives viagra to troops to carry out rapes as the UN Security Council wrangled over coalition attacks in Libya, diplomats said.
Russia and other nations have argued that France, Britain, the United States and their allies patrolling a no-fly zone over Libya are going beyond the mandate given by UN Security Council resolutions.
But the United States insisted that coalition actions were within the resolutions. US ambassador Susan Rice highlighted the use of viagra in the closed-door meeting as the debate intensified, according to diplomats present.
Rice said Kadhafi's forces were "issuing viagra to soldiers so that they go out and rape," said one diplomat at the meeting.
[AFP] MoreFriday, 29 April, 2011:
The U.S. ambassador to Libya says Muammar Qaddafi will only continue attacking rebels and protesters in his country and that it is time for him to go.
"It has become clear that Qaddafi and his henchmen have no intention of stopping the violence," Gene Cretz said in an interview with Fox News.
Cretz added that plenty of members of Qaddafi's government want to defect, just as former foreign minister Moussa Koussa did soon after the uprising began in March. But he says terror and fear in the Libyan capital of Tripoli have kept that from happening.
"The time is fast approaching where they have to make a decision," Cretz said. "And they have to decide whether to go down with the ship."
[Fox News] MoreFriday, 29 April, 2011:
he racing driver at the centre of McLaren's attempts to secure £25million in sponsorship from Libya - as revealed by Sportsmail - has spoken of his mixed feelings about the deal falling through.
Alex Waters, a Formula Three racer, was alerted to Colonel Gaddafi's son Saif being interested in motor racing by his architect uncle, Brian Waters, who was in talks about planning work in Tripoli.
Alex spoke to McLaren last year and signed a contract with the team. They then furnished him with computer-generated images of what the car Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button drive would look like with 'Visit Libya' livery to pass on to the Libyan consortium.
'My contact was through the Libyan Tourist Board,' said Waters. 'I never had any contact with Saif Gaddafi, or anyone else involved at that level.
[Daily Mail] MoreFriday, 29 April, 2011:
LONDON — Fuel deliveries to Libya's rebel-held ports have restarted with trading house Vitol shipping at least one cargo of diesel to the port of Benghazi last week, industry sources said Thursday.
A diesel cargo aboard the tanker Delos was loaded in Malta, where Vitol has floating storage capacity, and shipped across the Mediterranean Sea to eastern Libya just over a week ago, the sources said.
Ship tracking data provided by Marine Traffic shows the tanker reached Tobruk on April 17, and six days later, during which time there is no satellite information available, sailed from the port of Benghazi on April 23, heading back to Malta.
"The vessel loaded ship-to-ship out of Vitol's storage and moved to Tobruk over a week ago," one source said.
[MSNBC] MoreFriday, 29 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, April 28 (Reuters) - In Tripoli's gold souqs and on its black market, a dollar buys you more dinars now than it did before the war and in the supermarkets prices are beginning to creep up as sanctions and currency woes bite.
Banks still exchange money at the official rate of 1.2 to the dollar, but the black market rate hovers between 1.8 and 1.9 dinars having reached over 3 dinars when short-lived protests shook the capital in February. "People wanted to buy dollars at the start and they bought a lot in the first week," said one jeweller who changes money on the side.
"The dollar was at 3.00 dinars or more at the beginning when things were really confused. Now it is at 1.85. It has stabilised a little. There's no fear now."
Demonstrations have fizzled out in Tripoli since the start of the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi in February saw rebels take over the country's second-largest city, Benghazi.
[Reuters] More

Thursday, 28 April, 2011:
Washington (CNN) -- The United States considers the Libyan opposition group worthy of support but is not yet ready to formally recognize it, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz said Wednesday. Cretz said the lack of formal support has not stopped the United States from aiding the opposition.
Cretz said the United States has found the opposition Transitional National Council to be a "credible body" and a "serious group." He said, however, recognition is a "very complex" issue and the State Department's legal department is examining it carefully.
"Recognition remains a legal and international obligations issue that we're still studying," Cretz said. "We're a very legalistic country and we're looking at all the different complexity" of whether to recognize the rebels.
[CNN] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
Washington - The death toll from the conflict in Libya could be as high as 30,000, the US ambassador to Tripoli said.
Gene Cretz told reporters in Washington Wednesday that estimates of the dead range from 10,000 to 30,000 but it will difficult to determine the total cost in human lives until the fighting is over.
'We keep getting reports, even from contacts in Tripoli and in the west, of bodies that have been uncovered on the beach,' Cretz said. 'We just have no sense of the scale of this thing until it's over.'
Cretz said there was no sign Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's forces were adhering to self-declared ceasefires as they continued their assault on the key city of Misurata, which is under control of the rebel opposition.
[M&C] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
MISURATA, Libya — At least one NATO warplane attacked a rebel position on the front lines of this besieged city on Wednesday, a rebel commander said, killing 12 fighters and wounding five others in what he called an accident that could have been avoided. The rebels were at first reluctant to admit the killings had occurred, saying they did not want to discourage further air strikes against the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who have been shelling Misurata and pounding it with ground-to-ground rocket fire. The pace of NATO strikes had picked up noticeably in recent days, after rebel leaders complained of a lack of support after the United States turned over operational control of the air campaign to NATO at the end of March.
But as the bodies of the killed fighters were being collected at a medical clinic in the Qasr Ahmed neighborhood, a grieving rebel commander, Abdullah Mohammed, provided an account of the errant strikes.
[New York Times] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
DUBAI — The pilot of a United Arab Emirates plane taking part in air operations over Libya on Wednesday was forced to eject while landing at an airbase in Italy, the official UAE news agency said. NATO had previously said the pilot of an F-16 fighter enforcing the no-fly zone ejected while nearing the outbound runway of Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily.
It declined to reveal the nationality of the aircraft, which suffered "substantial damage," but an alliance official said the pilot was in good condition. The airfield was temporarily closed but should reopen later in the day.
"The pilot ejected safely," it said.
The UAE statement said the aircraft veered off course during landing due to bad weather conditions, without elaborating.
[MSNBC] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
A United Nations fact-finding mission arrived in the capital city of Tripoli on Wednesday to look into reports of human rights violations by Libyan authorities.
The UN delegation raised a number of issues, including the "indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, civilian casualties, torture, the use of mercenaries and other questions of the sort," said delegation leader Cherif Bassiouni, who is from Egypt. Elsewhere in Libya, forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi fired mortar rounds into the west side of Misrata, rebel sources told Reuters.
The offensive represented a new tactic for the pro-Gadhafi forces, who have previously confined their attacks to the port area on Misrata's rebel-held east side.
[CBC] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
HAMBURG/LONDON, April 27 (Reuters) - Food imports into Libya's rebel-held east are being hit as the interim national council struggles to establish lines of credit and foreign traders fear they will not be paid.
Libya was a net importer of food before heavy fighting between rebels and leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces interrupted supply chains.
This week the World Food Programme (WFP) said, "A recent inter-agency mission found that food stocks in the eastern parts of the country are not being replenished at normal rates and the current stocks are enough for up to two months only."
"If the import capacity is not restored quickly, this could lead to a massive food availability problem for the entire population of eastern Libya," the U.N. agency warned.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
TARHUNAH, Libya (Reuters) - The man squats down and fires. A rocket-propelled grenade shoots into the desert to calls of "Allahu Akbar," God is Greatest. Another man takes his place.
These are members of the volunteer army being trained by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the name of fighting any NATO ground invasion.
Libyan officials have said in recent weeks that they had begun arming and training civilians across government-controlled western Libya, in an effort to put the country's tribes at the forefront of the fight against NATO attacks.
In a government-organised trip on Wednesday, journalists were taken to Tarhunah, 85 km (53 miles) southeast of Tripoli, to meet the volunteers who are being armed and trained there.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
Libyan Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi objects to being called a rebel diplomat.
For the No. 2 man at the Libyan mission to the U.N., Moammar Gadhafi is the rebel and he and the 14 diplomats he works with are the true loyalists, labouring for the good of the Libyan people.
"We want a civilized state, a democratic state," Dabbashi said in an interview with The Associated Press this week. He expects the NATO-backed opposition forces fighting against Gadhafi in Libya will prevail in a few weeks or months, "but it will not last until the end of the year."
Dabbashi, deputy representative at the mission until Gadhafi withdrew his support for him and other defecting diplomats in late March, figures they can hold out for at least two or three more months at their offices a block from U.N. headquarters in New York.
[Canadian Press] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhuanet) -- With the Opposition in Libya trying to gain popularity, a dead resistance hero has become a symbol for those rising up against Muammar Gaddafi.
Omar al-Mukhtar is the Libyan resistance leader who fought the Italian occupation in the early twentieth century.
Towns like Al-Badya are now in rebels' hands, but as the battle for Libya rages on to the west, al-Mukhta has become a potent symbol for those against Gaddafi.
Mohamed Mahmoud Agila said, "To Libyans, Omar al-Mukhtar means struggle, and fighting to force the occupier out of our Libyan Land. But Muammar Gaddafi has erased this from the memory of the people and made himself the only hero. Our demand is freedom, no more and no less, and we are calling for the departure of Gaddafi and his family."
[Xinhuanet] MoreThursday, 28 April, 2011:
The European Union is preparing for a large-scale military operation if the United Nations authorizes the international coalition to scale up its military action in Libya. This comes in a 60-page document that has landed in the hands of reporters of Germany’s biggest daily publication, Das Bild.
According to the paper, all branches of arms are due to take part in the operation in question. The plan also enumerates the threats that the western force will come to face in Libya, specifically terrorist attacks, road and field mining and the drawing of the troops into inter-clan and inter-tribal conflicts.
A ground operation in Libya would thus prove a dangerous undertaking for Europe, the document says. According to the plan, the operation should last no more than four months.
[RUVR] More

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011:
Aisha el-Qaddafi, the 36-year-old lawyer daughter of embattled Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi told the New York Times in an exclusive interview that she likes telling her three children bedtime stories about life after death, especially during the war.
"To make them ready," she said during the interview, "because in a time of war you never know when a rocket or a bomb might hit you, and that will be the end."
Qaddafi, who once served on Saddam Hussein's defense team, compared NATO's efforts in Libya to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, predicting a situation even worse for Libya's future. "The opposition in Iraq told the West that when you come to Iraq they will greet you with roses," Qaddafi told the New York Times. "Almost 10 years later they are receiving the Americans with bullets, and, believe me, the situation in Libya will be much worse."
[CBS News] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
A UN team is due to arrive in Tripoli to investigate allegations of human rights violations in Libya since the start of the conflict in February.
The team was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council following the Libyan government's crackdown on protesters.
The government has said it will co-operate with the inquiry.
The three investigators say they will look at all alleged abuses, including those the government says have been committed by rebels or Nato forces.
The original mandate - to examine human rights violations allegedly committed by the forces of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi - remains the priority, says the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva, where the UN Human Rights Council is based.
[BBC] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has sent a delegation to Venezuela to seek peaceful solutions to the conflict in the North African nation, President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday.
Chavez provided few details about the delegation sent by Gadhafi, saying only that "they have come to our country to search for a political way out of Libya's crisis."
Shortly after the violent upheaval in Libya began in February, Chavez proposed the creation of an international peace commission to mediate an end to the conflict. He said his government is continuing to seek a negotiated solution.
The Venezuelan president calls Gadhafi a friend and has been a staunch opponent of the military intervention by U.S. and European air forces. The leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia have taken similar stances.
[AP] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has eased its sanctions on Libya to allow for the sale of oil controlled by the rebels. The move will allow Libya's opposition forces to use the income from oil sales to purchase weapons and other supplies.
The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued the order Tuesday. It will allow U.S. companies to engage in transactions involving oil, natural gas and other petroleum products if the petroleum exports will benefit the opposition Transitional National Council of Libya.
The new order modified sanctions the administration had imposed in February freezing $34 billion in assets held by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, his family members and top government officials. The original order had imposed sanctions on Libya's oil companies.
[AP] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is "on the back foot", Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said, citing new momentum in Nato's air campaign.
He said there had been "significant progress" in the past 72 hours against Col Gaddafi's forces in Misrata.
He was speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon after meeting US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
Misrata has come under attack by Libyan government forces attempting to retake the besieged city.
Three people were reportedly killed as missiles slammed into the city's port, a lifeline for those seeking to escape to the rebel stronghold Benghazi. Nato is enforcing a UN resolution to protect civilians in Libya amid a two-month revolt inspired by other uprisings in the Arab world.
[BBC] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Sixteen journalists covering the conflict in Libya are reported missing or detained by authorities in the North African country. One Canadian national and three Americans are on the list of endangered journalists, compiled Tuesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists and other reports.
Lotfi Ghars, a journalist with dual Canadian and Tunisian citizenships who was working for Iran's state-run Al-Alam television news channel, was arrested on March 16 while trying to enter Libya from Tunisia, his news organization said.
Two American reporters were taken into custody on April 5 by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi: James Foley, a photojournalist working for GlobalPost, a Boston-based news agency; and Clare Morgana Gillis, who was covering the fighting for The Atlantic and USA Today. The third American is freelance journalist Matthew VanDyke.
[Canadian Press] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
The rebels in Libya are short of many things these days — weapons, money, even Cabinet ministers.
In the largely improvised scramble to set up an alternative to leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime, the rebels are leaning heavily on a small number of people. One of them is Ali Tarhouni, a University of Washington economics professor who abruptly left his family and students to join an uncertain Libyan revolution.
Tarhouni is not an easy man to sit down with these days; it would be an exaggeration to call him a one-man Cabinet, but sometimes it seems that way. As he settles onto a leather couch in a Benghazi office on one recent day, the phone rings. He springs off the couch and speed walks out of the room to hand the phone to an aide. Otherwise the interview will never happen, he says.
[NPR] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
A former inmate at the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison who was considered a “probable” member of al Qaeda and a "medium-to-high risk" is now among the leadership of the U.S.-backed Libyan rebellion aiming to depose dictator Moammar Gadhafi, according to leaked documents cited in media reports.
The former prisoner turned American ally, known as Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu, was captured in Pakistan after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. He was then sent to Guantanamo Bay, where, according to classified documents released by WikiLeaks, U.S. analysts determined in 2005 that he was a “former member of the [al Qaeda-linked] Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), [a] probable member of al Qaeda and a member of the North African Extremist Network.”
[The New American] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
UP to 1,000 Libyan refugees could soon be heading to the UK to seek asylum.
Hundreds were already massing near the Paris Eurostar terminal yesterday - and their numbers are growing by dozens a day.
The Libyans, along with desperate Tunisians fleeing the turmoil in their country, have set up camps in squares close to the France-UK rail hub.
Most will find it impossible to travel directly from the Gare du Nord terminal to Britain because travel visas are checked before departure.
But some have already vowed to pay people smugglers to sneak them into the UK while others are heading for Channel ports in a bid to board ferries.
[The Sun] MoreWednesday, 27 April, 2011:
UNITED NATIONS, April 26 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said here Tuesday that his special envoy to Libya, Abdelilah Al-Khatib, will travel to Benghazi, the stronghold of Libyan rebels, on Friday.
"The continuing imperative is to protect civilians," Ban told reporters at the end of the UN Security Council closed-door consultations and he added that the humanitarian situation is " growing increasingly urgent."
"Diplomatic efforts focus on securing a ceasefire and achieving a political solution," he said. "On Friday, my special envoy, Mr. Al-Khatib, will travel once again to Benghazi."
Benghazi, a city of more than one million people, is the stronghold for rebels in the east of Libya.
Earlier this month, Al-Khatib held talks in the embattled North African country with both rebels and the government of Muammar Gaddafi.
[Xinhuanet] More

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, April 26 (Reuters) - Libya's rebel-held city of Misrata won no respite from two months of bitter siege as Muammar Gaddafi's forces bombarded the city and battled rebel fighters, despite pulling out of the city centre.
Gaddafi's forces were also pounding Berber towns in Libya's Western Mountains with artillery, rebels and refugees said, in a remote region far from the view of international media.
Italy said its warplanes would join the British and French bombing of Libyan targets for the first time and NATO flattened a building inside Gaddafi's Tripoli compound, in what his officials said was a failed attempt on the Libyan leader's life.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
ROME – Premier Silvio Berlusconi says Italy will take part in strategic bombing raids over Libya.
Berlusconi's office issued a statement late Monday, after the premier spoke with U.S. President Barack Obama, saying Italy had decided to beef up its military action to better contribute to protecting civilians.
Italy had previously said it wouldn't take part in air strikes against Libyan targets, given its 40-year colonial rule over the country.
Italian aircraft and navy ships have, however, been involved in refueling and other operations for NATO forces.
The statement stressed that Italian airstrikes would only be for "specific military objectives."
[Fox News] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
Pope Benedict XVI included Libya in his Easter prayers on Sunday. He prayed for diplomacy to prevail in the country and for the citizens to build a brand new society that is rooted on respect. He also asked Europeans to welcome North African refugees.
While the pope delivered the “Urbi et Orbi” (a tradition of giving a Papal message from the central balcony of the St. Peter’s Basilica) he said that in heaven, peace and gladness overflows. Thus, it pains him that it is not the case down here on Earth.
The pope said that he is praying for dialogues and diplomacy to replace arms and wars in Libya.
[YDNF] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya, April 25 (UPI) -- Rebel leaders in Libya said it would take about a month for the opposition to ship oil out of their territory after weekend strikes on two oil fields.
Wahid Bougaighis, the director of rebel-controlled National Oil Co., said his company needs about a month to survey damage caused when forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi attacked two oil fields during the weekend, the Platts news service reports.
"We're in the process of mobilizing the repairs," he was quoted as saying. "We need four weeks to see our plans for reconstruction to give a process of a start date."
[UPI] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
LONDON — British defence minister Liam Fox travelled to the United States on Monday for talks with his American counterpart Robert Gates on the conflict in Libya, defence officials in London said.
The head of the British armed forces, Chief of Defence Staff General David Richards, was also due in Washington and would meet with his US counterpart, a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokeswoman said.
Discussions will focus on "how the campaign has gone so far and what further opportunities we can exploit on the ground there," the spokeswoman said.
Plans to step up precision targeting of Libyan forces following the deployment of US Predator drones would also be discussed, said the spokeswoman.
[AFP] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
LONDON, April 25 (Reuters) - Britain has decided against inviting a Libyan representative to the wedding this week of Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey, official sources said on Monday.
An invitation to Libya's ambassador was prepared before the conflict in the country intensified in March but was not delivered, according to the sources.
The decision not to issue the invitation to the wedding on Friday was made by the Foreign Office which is dealing with the issue of which foreign dignitaries should attend, they said.
Protocol dictates that all ambassadors based in London should be invited unless there is a diplomatic problem.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — Jalal al Kwafi said his wife hated Libya's uprising even before it began two months ago.
She hated it, he said, before he was detained for 12 days for helping to spur the movement through a Facebook page, before government forces nearly killed him and before she, her husband, their children and the rest of Benghazi found themselves living in what the Western world now calls a stalemate.
But still he vows not to give up, even though the push to rid Libya of Moammar Gadhafi now appears likely to take months, not the weeks that people had hoped.
[McClatchydc] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
USU student Abeer Alakari is one of 2,500 Libyan students attending college in North America on a Libyan scholarship that is now stuck in diplomatic financial limbo.
Caught between a civil war in her home country and international sanctions on Libya's leader, Alakari and all other Libyan students were told there will be no money available through their scholarship program after May 31.
"Just thinking about that right now, I am completely paralyzed about what I'm going to do," Alakari said. Alakari's scholarship, funded by the Libyan government, pays for tuition, living expenses and medical insurance. She has no idea whether there will be money to support her and her family after next month.
[USU Statesman] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
DHIBA BORDER CROSSING, Tunisia — For decades, the remote mountains of western Libya have simmered with resentment. An enclave of the Berber minority, mistrusted and neglected by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Arab nationalist government, the region’s isolated hamlets were among the first to join the uprising, raising the rebel flag on the first day of the revolt. But the Nafusah Mountain range, which rises out of the desert at the Tunisian border as a sudden, hazy shadow and runs several hundred miles east in a narrow chain, is hardly a rebel stronghold. Rebel fighters in the region estimate their ranks at just a few hundred ill-equipped and untrained young men.
[New York Times] MoreTuesday, 26 April, 2011:
GORKI, Moscow Region — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon courted support on Friday from President Dmitry Medvedev, who has criticized UN-sanctioned military action in Libya.
“I’d like to really count on your strong support, leadership and guidance in continuing my work as secretary-general,” Ban told Medvedev at the start of a meeting at the president’s Gorki residence.
Ban is in the final year of his term as head of the world body, and diplomats say the United States and other key Security Council members have given preliminary pledges of support for a second five-year term. But his spokesman said Ban’s comment was not intended as a request for support for a possible second term.
[The Moscow Times] More

Monday, 25 April, 2011:
Senator John McCain warned on Sunday that he feared the conflict in Libya was heading toward a “stalemate” and threatened to create a vacuum that could result in Al Qaeda gaining control of the North African country. Speaking from Cairo, Mr. McCain, a strong advocate of intervention in Libya, also said that Al Qaeda could take advantage of an encroaching stalemate as a tenacious Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi continued to cling to power.
"I really fear a stalemate," said Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, speaking on CNN television’s “State of the Union” program after visiting the rebel strongholds in Libya. He said the rebel fighters were “badly outgunned in armor, in equipment, in training” against forces loyal to Col. Qaddafi.
[New York Times] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
(Reuters) - Kuwait will contribute 50 million Kuwaiti dinars ($177.2 million) to Libya's rebel council to help pay salaries in the breakaway east of the country, a rebel leader said on Sunday.
"His Highness the Emir gave us a financial grant valued at 50 million Kuwaiti dinar. This amount will help us a lot in paying the salaries of employees who did not receive their little salaries for two months," said Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the Libyan rebel national council.
"We are capable of only covering 40 percent of this amount. We are in need of urgent aid," he told a Kuwait news conference.
On April 4, Kuwait became the second Arab state after Qatar to officially recognize the Libyan rebel forces.
[Reuters] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
Washington (CNN) – Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has a recommendation to NATO and the Obama administration when it comes to their involvement in Libya: bomb Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's inner circle and remove him from power.
"Go to Tripoli, start bombing Gadhafi's inner circle, their compounds, their military headquarters in Tripoli," Graham said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think the focus should now be to cut the head of the snake off. That's the quickest way to end this." Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was an early proponent of a no-fly zone in Libya and has consistently said troops should attack Gadhafi while arming anti-Gadhafi rebels.
The calls come while rebel forces attempt to oust the long-time leader, who has been in power for 42 years.
[Political Ticker] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
The ageing military instructor had assumed the statuesque pose of a javelin thrower to teach his rebel pupils how to fire a rocket-propelled grenade.
"It flies through the air like this," he demonstrated gravely, grasping the rocket projectile in his right hand like a paper aeroplane.
Seated at his feet in deep, but puzzled attention were nearly 30 cross-legged students dressed in everything from long traditional robes to business suits, rather than fatigues.
Some 50 yards away, on the parade ground of what was once one of Col Muammar Gaddafi's largest military camps in Benghazi, was another semicircle of students gathered around a dilapidated anti-aircraft gun.
[Telegraph] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - Moammar Gadhafi's forces unleashed a barrage of shells and rockets at Misrata on Sunday in an especially bloody weekend, countering Libyan government claims that the army was holding its fire into the western city.
Despite the barrage, which doctors say killed 32 and wounded dozens in two days, rebels said they drove the last pro-government forces from the center of Libya's third-largest city. Morale among Gadhafi's troops fighting in Misrata has collapsed, with some abandoning their posts, said one captured Libyan soldier. The battle for Misrata, which has claimed hundreds of lives in the past two months, has become the focal point of Libya's armed rebellion against Gadhafi since fighting elsewhere is deadlocked.
[WTHI-TV] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
Thousands of people marched across Germany to protest against NATO's wars in Libya and Afghanistan as part of the country's traditional Easter marches.
German peace and church groups as well as labor unions have planned numerous anti-war campaigns over the Easter holidays in major German cities and towns, including Berlin, Dortmund, Bremen Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Duesseldorf and Stuttgart. Several US military bases in smaller German cities like Ramstein, Ansbach, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg were also targeted by peace demonstrators as Germany is a major logistics center for US military operations abroad and was also the staging ground for American wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
[Nation] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
Benghazi, Libya - One of the darkest secrets of Moamer Gaddafi's Libya may soon be revealed.
In 1998, more than 400 children were infected with HIV, the virus causing AIDS, at a paediatric hospital in Benghazi. To this day it is not known who was responsible.
But now that the embattled regime has lost control of the eastern city, witnesses can finally speak out without fear of reprisal. The last intelligence agent at the hospital minding that everyone kept mum disappeared on the first day of the uprising in Benghazi, according to an administrator.
After the mass infections came to light, a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses who worked at the hospital were convicted in a show trial of having deliberately injected the children with HIV- tainted blood.
[M&C] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
For almost an hour, now, Hisham Matar and I have been sequestered in a small Kensington cafe. It's a characteristic, overcast day in London, and we are only a few minutes from Matar's home; but we feel ourselves a thousand miles and many years away, amid the streets of Cairo in 1990. It was from those streets, and in that year, that Hisham's father was kidnapped he says by agents of the Libyan government. Hisham and his family have not seen him since.
"For years as a young man I wondered if what had happened to my father meant a complete waste of everything he'd done, his entire life," he says.
"The revolution in Libya answers that question for me unequivocally. It was men such as my father, and many like him, who carved with their bare hands the stepping stones that led to these events. This isn't some abstract idea: I've seen pictures of demonstrators holding pictures of my father. So there is a clear, tangible link."
[The National] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
An attempt to hijack a plane to Libya was foiled on Sunday night by the cabin crew, according to the Italian airline, Alitalia.
Italy's Ansa news agency said the would-be hijacker was armed with a small knife. He was thought to be from Kazakhstan.
The incident took place on a flight from Paris to Rome with 131 passengers on board. Alitalia identified it as flight AZ 329 which had taken off from Paris at 8.24pm local time.
The airline said in a statement: "A passenger in an evident state of agitation assaulted a flight attendant, demanding that the flight be diverted to Tripoli. Thanks to the swift intervention of the other flight attendants the attacker was restrained in his seat and the flight continued towards Rome Fiumicino where it landed normally at 21.55."
[Guardian] MoreMonday, 25 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI - NATO airstrikes targeted the center of Muammar Qaddafi's seat of power early Monday, destroying a multi-story library and office and badly damaging a reception hall for visiting dignitaries, in what a press official from Qaddafi's government said was an attempt on the Libyan leader's life.
Qaddafi's whereabouts at the time of the attack on his sprawling Bab al-Azizya compound were unclear. A security official at the scene said four people were lightly hurt.
A press official, who asked not to be identified, said 45 people were injured, including 15 who were seriously hurt, and some were still unaccounted for after the attack. There has been no independent verification of those figures as yet.
[CBS] More

Sunday, 24 April, 2011:
Tripoli: Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister, Khaled Kaim, told journalists in the capital Tripoli on Friday that the Libyan army was being withdrawn from fighting in the town of Misrata, with the task of subduing rebels in the area being handed over to local "tribes".
He said the army tactic had been to use "a surgical solution" but that had not worked because of NATO airstrikes.
"We will leave it to the tribes around Misrata and Misrata's people to deal with the situation there in Misrata," he said.
Kaim said that tribal leaders had warned the army to step aside if it could not retake the city and they would fight the rebels if they don't surrender.
[NDTV] MoreSunday, 24 April, 2011:
The US military has confirmed the first strike by an unmanned Predator drone aircraft in Libya.
Nato said the drone destroyed a Libyan government multiple rocket launcher near Misrata at approximately 1100GMT.
Drones can hit military targets more easily in urban areas, minimising the risk of civilian casualties.
Earlier, Libya's government warned that tribes loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi might take over the fight against the rebels in the western city of Misrata. The deputy foreign minister said the Libyan army was being withdrawn and suggested that the tribes would not show the same level of restraint over civilian casualties.
But a rebel military spokesman in Benghazi said Col Gaddafi was "playing games" and would not allow his forces to leave Misrata.
Human rights groups say more than 1,000 people have died there.
[BBC] MoreSunday, 24 April, 2011:
MISURATA, Libya — Libyan rebels said they had flushed more government soldiers from the besieged western city of Misurata on Saturday, consolidating their control after another day of heavy fighting marked by the first strike by U.S.-armed Predator drones.
“We are winning. All of [Moammar Gaddafi’s] tanks and weapons have been seized inside Misurata,” said Mohamed Ali, a spokesman for the rebel city council. Ali said he had earlier witnessed what appeared to have been the first Predator drone attack of the conflict, on the vegetable market on Tripoli Street, the main three-mile avenue that divides the city, where a few of Gaddafi’s troops were still holed up and attacking. NATO said a U.S. Predator drone destroyed a multiple-rocket launcher Saturday in the Misurata area that was being used against civilians.
[Washington Post] MoreSunday, 24 April, 2011:
President Obama’s foreign policy is facing increased pressure from Republicans amid an ongoing military stalemate in Libya and a poll showing a drop in support for his actions.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) traveled to Libya on Friday and stepped up his call for the U.S. to increase support for the rebels and to officially recognize their government in Benghazi. The visit from the president’s former campaign rival put the Obama administration in an awkward position, as the White House said it was aware of the trip but that McCain was not carrying a diplomatic message from the U.S. government. A day before McCain met with rebel leaders in their Benghazi stronghold, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the president had authorized the use of Predator drones against forces loyal to Muammar Gadhafi, an re-escalation of the U.S. military intervention.
[The Hill] MoreSunday, 24 April, 2011:
The Middle East. A man with a car fashioned into a bomb. He disguises his intent by joining a funeral cortege passing the chosen target. At the last minute the man swings the vehicle away, puts his foot down and detonates the propane canisters packed into the car.
It all sounds horrifyingly familiar. Mahdi Ziu was a suicide bomber in a region too often defined by people blowing up themselves and others. But, as with so much in Libya, the manner of Ziu's death defies the assumptions made about the uprisings in the Arab world by twitchy American politicians and generals who see Islamic extremism and al-Qaeda lurking in the shadows. Ziu's attack was an act of pure selflessness, not terror, and it may have saved Libya's revolution.
[Guardian] MoreSunday, 24 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — The international drive to freeze the Libyan regime’s foreign assets is running into stiff resistance in many parts of the world, allowing Moammar Gadhafi to dig into a vast hoard of cash that has helped him cling to power as he battles rebel forces.
Although the United States and the European Union have blocked access to more than $60 billion in Libya’s overseas bank accounts and investments, other countries have done little or nothing to freeze tens of billions more that Gadhafi and his family spread around the globe over the last decade, according to U.S., European and U.N. officials involved in the search for Libyan assets.
Gadhafi has moved billions of dollars back to Tripoli since the rebellion began in mid-February, the officials said.
[Boston Herald] MoreSunday, 24 April, 2011:
Against the backdrop of American drone attacks on Muammar Qaddafi’s forces, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced plans to travel to Benghazi to meet the country’s opposition, reported Agence-France Presse.
Mr. Sarkozy agreed to meet with the Transitional National Council sometime next week, a top presidential aide said in Paris.
On Friday, US Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, visited Benghazi, the center of the uprising, as a show of support for insurgents trying to overthrow Colonel Qaddafi. He urged his government to recognize the rebel council as the country’s government and provide financial assistance and more military aid to the insurgents.
Despite sanctions placed against Libya by the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, Mr. Qaddafi’s forces are said to be receiving funds from oil sales, according to various reports.
[Alarabiya] MoreSunday, 24 April, 2011:
Libyan children as young as eight have suffered sexual assaults, including rape, amid the worsening conflict across the country, a British aid agency has warned.
Although Save the Children said it could not confirm the reports, the charity said the accounts by children were consistent and they were displaying signs of physical and emotional distress.
The allegations come from 200 children and 40 adults who have fled from Misrata, Ajdabiya and Ras Lanuf and are now in temporary camps in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
The families told the charity's staff that children as young as eight had been sexually assaulted, sometimes in front of their relatives.
[Guardian] More

Saturday, 23 April, 2011:
Supporters of Marquette University graduate and journalist James Foley received word Thursday that he's in good health despite being held by Libyan government forces.
American journalist Clare Gillis, who is being held along with Foley and Spanish photographer Manuel Brabo, was allowed to call home for 15 minutes on Thursday, according to a story in the Atlantic, one of the publications Gillis is working for. Gillis said the journalists were captured outside the city of Brega on April 5 and taken to the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
Foley, 37, is a history and Spanish major from New Hampshire who graduated from Marquette in 1996. He attended journalism school at Northwestern University. He's been reporting on the Libyan conflict for the online news operation GlobalPost.
[JS Online] MoreSaturday, 23 April, 2011:
MISRATA, Libya—Rebel fighters in this besieged city hoisted their flag atop the roof of the Libya Insurance Co. on Friday capping a month long battle for the strategically and symbolically important office tower.
In the past month of fighting, the nine-story bullet-scarred building became the emblematic heart of the battle for this city.
The building marked the deepest point Mr. Gadhafi's forces penetrated into downtown Misrata in mid-March. Ever since it has served as a nest for Mr. Gadhafi's sniper teams.
Its capture on Friday gave a boost to a city that is waging a gritty fight against a siege of artillery, rockets, and cluster bombs for over two months.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreSaturday, 23 April, 2011:
U.S. Sen. John McCain called for increased military support for Libya's rebels Friday, including weapons, training and stepped-up airstrikes, in a full-throated endorsement of the opposition in its fight to oust Moammar Gadhafi. In the Libyan capital, meanwhile, a senior official said government troops would step back and allow local armed tribesmen to deal with rebels in the besieged city of Misrata.
The action came a day after the U.S. began flying armed drones to bolster NATO airstrikes, and having the tribesmen take up the fight could make it harder for the Predators to distinguish them from Misrata's civilians or the rebels. McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the United States and other nations should recognize the opposition's political leadership as the "legitimate voice of the Libyan people." The White House disagreed, saying it was for the Libyan people to decide who their leaders are.
[Nola] MoreSaturday, 23 April, 2011:
President Obama's authorisation of the use of missile-armed drones is a further escalation of the Libya conflict that is sure to result in yet more civilian casualties (Obama sends in Predator drones to help Misrata, 22 April). The evidence is overwhelming that drone usage in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere massively increases "collateral damage". On 6 May 2002 a drone killed 10 Afghan civilians in a car convoy. On 5 January 2006 a drone targeting al-Qaida's Ayman al-Zawahiri blew up a house in Pakistan. He wasn't there and eight civilians were killed. A week later a Predator ordered into action from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, destroyed three houses in Demadola, Pakistan, killing 22 civilians, including five women and five children.
[Guardian] MoreSaturday, 23 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya - Sen. John McCain became the highest ranking U.S. official to meet with Libyan rebels during a surpise visit to opposition capital of Benghazi.
The Arizona Republican walked the streets of Benghazi where he was greeting with American flags and chants of "Thank You America."
The White House supported the trip, but McCain did not deliver any official messages, instead splitting from the more cautious tone the administration has maintained.
In a press conference he urged NATO to step up airstrikes, and the United States to recognize the opposition government.
"I would encourage every nation, especially the United States, to recognize the transitional national council as the legitimate voice of the Libyan people," said McCain.
[AZ Family] MoreSaturday, 23 April, 2011:
BEIJING, April 23 (Reuters) - China has warned Britain over plans to send military officers to advise Libyan rebels struggling against the forces of Muammar Gaddafi, saying that Beijing opposes any steps that go beyond the mandate of a United Nations resolution.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei stopped short of directly accusing Britain of violating the U.N. Security Council resolution on the Libyan conflict, but he left no doubt that China is unhappy about Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to send about a dozen officers to Libya to help insurgents improve their fighting capabilities.
[Reuters] MoreSaturday, 23 April, 2011:
BANJUL, April 22, 2011 (AFP) - The west African state of Gambia said Friday it was recognising the rebel Transitional National Council as the only legitimate body representing Libyan interests, and expelling Tripoli's diplomats.
A statement from the presidency read on state broadcasting media also said Banjul was “freezing and closing all the assets in Gambia held on behalf or in the name of” Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
These assets include a multi-million dollar five-star hotel, the Jerma Beach, the Laico Atlantic Hotel in the capital, Banjul, said to be worth $18 million, and Dream Park, a children's amusement park, it said.
“This move is taken on account of the heinous atrocities that are being carried out by the Kadhafi regime against innocent citizens and which have seen to date massive loss of life and wanton destruction of properties in Libya,” the statement said.
[Sunday Times] MoreSaturday, 23 April, 2011:
MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Driving an ambulance in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata is always a matter of life or death these days -- not only for the injured passenger in the back, but also for the luckless driver in the front.
Drivers say snipers and mortar operators loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, waging a bitter street-by-street war of attrition against rebels across Misrata, regard an ambulance as a juicy target.
"They know me and I know them," said Ibrahim Abu Lerfa, describing what he said was a deadly game of cat and mouse between him and government soldiers on the front lines of Misrata, which has been under siege for over seven weeks.
[Reuters] More

Friday, 22 April, 2011:
Reporting from Washington—
President Obama has approved the use of armed Predator drone aircraft to launch airstrikes against ground targets in Libya, the latest sign of mounting concern in Washington that the NATO-led air campaign has failed to stop Moammar Kadafi's forces from shelling the besieged city of Misurata and other populated areas.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who announced the decision at a Pentagon news conference, said Predators armed with Hellfire missiles would be used to augment airstrikes by warplanes from other North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations against the intensifying attacks by forces loyal to Kadafi.
The decision marks a resumption of a direct combat role for U.S. aircraft in Libya and represents a shift for the White House.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
REBEL FORCES fighting government troops in the far west of Libya seized control of the border crossing with Tunisia yesterday in an insurgency that has been largely dominated by the siege of Misurata and battles in the east.
At least 13 Libyan army officers, including two commanders, fled across the border into Tunisia, according to the official Tunisian news agency, TAP. “Rebels are now manning Dehiba crossing,” rebel commander Shaban Abu Sitta told the Associated Press. He claimed his fighters had destroyed 30 army pick-up trucks.
The Tunisian defence ministry said four rockets had hit territory a few hundred metres on its side of the border earlier this week. No one was injured.
[Irish Times] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
Presciently writing on the relationship between tactics and strategy thousands of years ago the Chinese philosopher of war, Sun Tzu, stated that "strategy without tactics is the slow road to victory," but "tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." His point was simple and clear: if a nation does one thing right in war and conflict it better be strategy first.
In Libya over the last few weeks all that we have seen are tactics. First, it was the political decision to deploy tactical airstrikes against the Kadafi regime; now we're pondering the tactic of arming the rebels.
Strategy is the part of war that seeks to apply elements of national power -- like deploying combat forces -- to achieve policy goals. Or not -- good strategy sometimes means that based on political goals and the relative costs and risks involved, it might be better to do nothing or just a little. It is unclear exactly what our strategy is with Libya today.
[Huffington Post] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
(Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged Libyan authorities to "stop fighting and stop killing people" and said the priority of the world body was to secure a ceasefire.
"At this time our priority is to bring about a verifiable and effective ceasefire, and then we can expand our humanitarian assistance, and we are going to engage in political dialogue," Ban said during a visit to the Russian capital.
"I urge the Libyan authorities to stop fighting and stop killing people," he told reporters.
Ban said more than half a million people had fled the fighting in Libya between forces loyal to President Muammar Gaddafi and rebels.
Hundreds of people are thought to have been killed.
[Reuters] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
NATO searches oil tanker Anwaar Libya
NAPLES - NATO hailed and boarded the oil tanker Anwaar Libya today and after determining it was empty allowed it to resume its voyage from Tripoli to Tunisia.
The Master of the ship was willing to receive the boarding party and the crew was cooperative. There was no violence, contrary to Libyan state news reports.
“The Qadhafi regime continually accuses NATO of unwarranted acts of violence, but it is the regime that is in fact killing innocent civilians and bringing violence to the people of Libya,” said Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, Commander of Operation Unified Protector.
[NATO] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
Muammar Gaddafi has remained in power for 42 years through tactful and respectful negotiation with those who disagree with him. He is adept at finding middle ground between opposing views and is known for encouraging reconciliation wherever it is possible. All those who have dealt with Gaddafi can testify that he is a reasonable, consistent, trustworthy humanitarian statesman whose word is his bond.
Are you cringing yet? Good. Then you'll know exactly how to receive the statement by Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, Gaddafi's foreign minister, that if the UN cancels the no-fly zone, and that if diplomatic and material support is withdrawn from the Libyan interim national council in Benghazi, Gaddafi and his hostage government will begin negotiations with the council that would lead to free elections within six months.
[Guardian] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday called for patience in judging the NATO campaign in Libya, comparing it to the 1999 Kosovo intervention that ended up ousting Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
"We've been at this a relatively short period of time," Clinton said. "I would remind you that the United States and other partners bombed targets in Serbia for 78 days."
In 1999, a NATO operation was launched to push forces loyal to the former Yugoslav president out of the province of Kosovo, where they led a campaign against separatist Kosovar Albanians.
Clinton said the campaign was a success in protecting Kosovars, but Milosevic remained in power.
"But," Clinton said, "there had been a dynamic put into motion that eventually led to his being in The Hague," before an international criminal court.
[AFP] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Eman al-Obeidy, the woman who alleges rape and abuse by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's security forces, said Thursday she feels defeated and lives in fear that she will be punished gravely for her words.
The legal proceedings in her rape case have not gone far, she told CNN. She has not been able to go home, either.
"I usually get harassed when I have to show my Identification card to government officials somewhere and they find out who I am and that I have put complaints forward against Gadhafi's people," she said in an interview conducted in a car.
"They humiliate me to the point where other people gather around and start saying that it is shameful to treat a Libyan woman that way," she said. "It is the same thing every day."
[CNN] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
Brussels - Mohammed al-Senussi has lived in exile for more than 20 years, ever since his family relinquished their claim to Libya's throne in the wake of a military coup led by Moamer Gaddafi.
Yet, Arabic remains al-Senussi's language of choice and crown prince of Libya his official title. His life abroad has also featured active participation in the exiled Libyan opposition.
'Libya is in my heart and my soul,' he told European lawmakers on a recent visit to Brussels. 'I truly hope that I will be with my people from tomorrow. As a simple, ordinary citizen living in exile, I will do all I can to support my people.'
With Gaddafi facing an internal rebellion and a NATO military intervention, al-Senussi has high hopes that the almost 42-year rule of the man he calls a dictator and a murderer will soon end.
[M&C] MoreFriday, 22 April, 2011:
Germany's economy minister is suggesting using Moammar Gadhafi's frozen assets to pay for humanitarian aid deliveries to alleviate suffering from the war in Libya.
Rainer Bruederle on Monday was quoted by magazine Der Spiegel as saying that the European Union should agree to transfer all frozen funds to the United Nations so that the money could be used "to pay for supplies of humanitarian aid." The ministry confirmed the remarks.
A German official, speaking on condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the issue, said any decision on the assets required "a multilateral, international agreement."
Gadhafi's government has said about $120 billion in assets have been frozen worldwide. Germany says they have frozen "several billion."
[Businessweek] More

Thursday, 21 April, 2011:
An Oscar-nominated film director and war photographer was killed Wednesday in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata, and three Western colleagues were wounded while covering battles between rebels and government forces.
British-born Tim Hetherington was killed by a round of mortar fire on Tripoli Street, the main thoroughfare and focus of the fighting in Misrata, the only rebel-held city in western Libya. The city has come under weeks of relentless shelling by forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi.
News reports say two photographers - Chris Hondros and Guy Martin - were gravely wounded in the blast. Their prospects for survival are unclear. A third photographer, Michael Brown, suffered light injuries.
[VOA News] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
PARIS — France and Italy said Wednesday that they would join Britain in sending some liaison officers to support the rebel army in Libya, in what military analysts said was a sign that there would be no quick and easy end to the war in Libya. The dispatching of the liaison officers — probably fewer than 40 of them, and carefully not designated as military trainers — is a sign also, they said, that only a combination of military pressure from the sky, economic pressure on the government and a better-organized and coordinated rebel force will finally convince Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi that he has no option but to quit. “Some countries thought the Libya operation could be over quickly,” said a senior NATO ambassador. “But no military commander thinks so.”
[New York Times] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
The Obama administration is preparing to provide $25 million in non-lethal aid to Libya’s opposition Transitional National Council, the TNC. The plan was confirmed Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also expressed concern about mounting casualties among pro-democracy protesters in Syria. Clinton is stressing that the aid package contains no weapons and does not amount to a "blank check" of unlimited U.S. aid to the TNC.
But it does represent a significant upgrade of U.S. backing for the umbrella Libyan opposition organization, which Clinton said is "holding its own" militarily in the face of what she termed a "brutal assault" by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces.
[VOA News] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
(Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi has consolidated his position in central and western Libya enough to maintain an indefinite standoff with rebels trying to end his four-decade rule, U.S. and European officials say.
"Gaddafi's people are feeling quite confident," said a European security official who closely follows Libyan events.
A "de facto partition for a long time to come" is the likely outcome, the official said, because of Gaddafi's improving position and the weakness of the ill-equipped and largely untrained opposition forces.
Growing pessimism about the rebels' ability to challenge Gaddafi's control of a large section of the country has fueled calls for greater support of the opposition from the United States and its allies.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
Tunis - Libya apologised to Tunisia after four mortar shells landed in its neighbour's territory, Tunisia's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.
The ministry said the shells were fired on Monday into a deserted border area, after which Tunisia voiced complaint. No injuries were reported.
Tripoli expressed its “profound regret” on Wednesday, promised an investigation to determine who was behind the shelling and said measures would be taken so it did not recur, said a ministry statement quoted by the official TAP news agency.
Tunisia said that beyond the violation of its territorial integrity, the incident represented “great danger for the security of populations and installations in the border zone” where Libyan refugees are congregating.
[The Star] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
MISRATA, Libya — Dr. Mohammed al-Fagieh, chief surgeon at Hilal Hospital in Misrata, carries around a gruesome catalogue of recent cases that have come through his wards.
When asked about common wounds, he pulled a cellphone from the pocket of his blue scrubs and flipped through a sampling of images.
"This was yesterday morning," he said Wednesday, showing a photo of a man with a gaping hole in his head. "His brains are out."
Following that is a video of a surgeon pulling a five-inch piece of shrapnel from a woman's abdomen.
Next is a photo of that woman's mother on a hospital bed with large bloody patches on her arms and chest from the same blast.
[Canadian Press] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
The Libyan people rose up against their dictatorial and murderous president and asked for world help to overthrow the tyrant and establish a democracy in Libya.
But the world, including the U.S., delayed taking any action. The Western world wanted to study the situation.
Finally, about a month later, the United Nations agreed to impose sanctions, including a no-fly zone around Libya, and coalition missiles and planes attacked Moammar Gadhafi’s military forces. They were able to halt Gadhafi’s drive to retake Benghazi and eastern Libya.
The opposition forces in the east were saved from annihilation, but unfortunately Gadhafi’s forces had penetrated many cities and had the opposition on the run.
[Nashua Telegraph] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
PARIS, April 20 (Reuters) - France, jointly with Britain, will send military liaison officers to opposition rebel forces locked in a conflict with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's army.
Government spokesman Francois Baroin stressed France had no intention of sending troops into Libya, where Western powers are struggling to break a deadlock in a two-month-old conflict.
"A small number of liaison officers (will be placed) with the National Transition Council in order to organise the protection of the civilian population," he told a news briefing.
He said they would number up to 10 and that this was an initiative in partnership with the Western-led coalition intervening in Libya.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
As the number of people defecting from Moamer Kadhafi increases day by day, the defiant regime intensifies attempts to prevent Libyans from leaving.
Deadly confrontations and deteriorating conditions forced several Libyan security officers to decamp to Tunisia. Magharebia learnt from an informed security source that the number of defectors to the neighbouring country has reached 8.
A boat carrying two army lieutenant colonels, a former army officer and a retired police colonel on Friday docked at El Ketf port in the Ben Guerdane region, according to the source. They were followed Sunday (April 17th) evening by another boat carrying a police lieutenant colonel, a retired captain, a police corporal and a customs administration corporal.
[Magharebia] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
The Italian and French foreign ministries on Wednesday said they too are going to send advisers to help Libyan rebels in their battle against forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi, following a decision made by the U.K. a day before.
Rebels and government forces have been deadlocked for weeks, with the main battleground centering around the port city of Misrata, prompting the three NATO allies to send military advisers.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini echoed statements made by NATO officials in support of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC). The NTC, based in the rebel-stronghold of Benghazi, has asserted itself as the legitimate ruler of Libya.
[The Epoch Times] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
CAIRO, April 20 (Reuters) - The son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said the government would prevail over rebels trying to oust his father and a new constitution was ready for when the insurgency was defeated, Al Arabiya TV reported on Wednesday.
The Dubai-based satellite channel said Saif al-Islam, speaking on Libyan state television, accused the Benghazi-based rebel national council as being motivated by "power and oil wealth".
"Libya will not go back to what it was," Al Arabiya quoted Saif al-Islam as saying. "The era of the first Jamahiriya (people's republic) is gone and a new draft constitution has been prepared".
Saif al-Islam has the highest profile among Gaddafi's sons although, like his father, he has no official government position.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
THE LIBYAN opposition’s transitional national council (TNC) opposes plans to deploy an EU force to Libya to ensure the delivery of aid supplies, a representative for the council said during a visit to Ireland yesterday.
The EU took the decision to prepare the mission, which needs UN approval, earlier this month. An operational headquarters for the proposed force, which has been named Eufor Libya, has already been established in Rome under the command of an Italian rear-admiral.
Officials are drawing up operational instructions concerning the size of the force, its equipment and make-up, and the rules of engagement.
[Irish Times] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
MISRATA, Libya, April 20 (Reuters) - Ten-year-old Mohammad Hassan lies in a hospital bed with a bullet wound to the head in the besieged city of Misrata, hallucinating one minute and calling out for his father the next.
He is a victim of what doctors say must have been a sniper loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
"My head, my head," cries the boy, tossing and turning as his mother paces the room.
Verses from the Koran play on a cellphone, about the only form of comfort available to a family which like others are scared government forces will recapture Misrata.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 21 April, 2011:
LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi's government is circumventing international sanctions to import gasoline to western Libya by using intermediaries who transfer the fuel between ships in Tunisia.
U.N. diplomats in New York said they suspected Gaddafi's attempts to import gasoline might consistute a violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions banning any transactions with Libya's state-owned National Oil Corp (NOC).
One intermediary company, Hong Kong-based Champlink, previously unknown to the oil trading community, has sought a transaction for fuel delivery into Libya, and European oil traders said they had been approached by other such firms.
[Reuters] More

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011:
Libya's foreign minister says a British plan to send a military team to advise rebels fighting Col Gaddafi would harm chances of peace in the country.
A UK military presence in rebel-held Benghazi would "prolong" fighting, Abdul Ati al-Obeidi told the BBC.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the move complied with a UN resolution to protect civilians in Libya, which forbids foreign occupation forces. The team is set to provide logistics and intelligence training in Benghazi.
The BBC understands about 10 UK officers and a similar number from France will be despatched on the mission.
[BBC] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya -- Britain is sending up to 20 military advisers to help Libya's ragtag rebel force break a military stalemate with Moammar Gadhafi's army, even as NATO acknowledges that airstrikes alone cannot stop the daily shelling of the besieged opposition-held city of Misrata.
Gadhafi's troops have been pounding Misrata indiscriminately with mortars and rockets, a NATO general said Tuesday, and residents reported more explosions and firefights in Libya's third-largest city. Hospitals are overflowing and 120 patients need to be evacuated from the city that has been under siege for nearly two months, the World Health Organization said.
[Mercury News] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
The World Food Program has started moving food assistance by land into parts of western Libya heavily affected by fighting for the first time since violence between the government and protesters began two months ago.
The World Food Program reports a convoy of eight trucks loaded with wheat flour and high-energy biscuits crossed into western Libya on Monday. WFP says these supplies are enough to feed nearly 50,000 people for 30 days.
WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella says earlier this week, the agency signed an operational agreement with the Libyan Red Crescent to coordinate the delivery and distribution of food assistance to the areas facing food shortages.
[VOA News] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
(Reuters) - France is opposed to the idea of sending troops into Libya to guide air strikes as the West struggles to break a military stalemate in the North African country, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Tuesday.
Juppe said the situation in Libya was "difficult" and "confused" a month after France launched the first U.N.-mandated strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's forces.
He added that the West had underestimated the Libyan leader's ability to adapt his tactics in response to the coalition campaign.
Gaddafi's army has switched to light vehicles like pickup trucks after strikes led by France, Britain and the United States targeted his tanks and heavy weaponry.
[Reuters] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
The majority of Spanish parliamentary parties voted on Tuesday to extend the country's participation in NATO's Libya operation by two months.
Spanish Defense Minister Carme Chacon said the international coalition had to continue its "legitimate intervention in the region" to resolve the conflict.
The conflict can not be resolved by purely military methods and required "political and diplomatic efforts" to secure a lasting peace in the region, she said.
Spanish troops will not become involved in air strikes or a ground operation in the North African country, the minister said.
[Rian] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
Washington - The United States continues to leave open the possibility of arming rebels in Libya who are under heavy attack by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi, a US official said Tuesday.
'In terms of arming the rebels, that option's not been taken off the table. All options remain on the table,' US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
Washington has said for weeks that supplying weapons to the opposition forces had not been decided.
Answering repeated questions from reporters about what the US was doing to help the rebels, Toner noted the international agreement last week to set up financial mechanisms to funnel money to them.
[M&C] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
TUNIS, April 19 (Reuters) - Four mortar shells fired from Libya fell across the border in Tunisia this week, the latest sign of worsening violence in a remote Libyan region where residents say Muammar Gaddafi's forces are fighting rebels.
Thousands of people fleeing Libya's Western Mountains -- where some towns joined a wider revolt against Gaddafi's rule in February and are now facing an onslaught by government troops -- have poured into neighbouring Tunisia in recent days.
The state news agency TAP, citing Tunisia's Defence Ministry, said the mortar shells landed in an isolated area near the southern border town of Dehiba on Monday. No one was wounded and it was unclear who fired them.
[Reuters] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
DOHA: King Abdullah of Jordan has said that his country was working in collaboration with Qatar to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Libya.
King Abdullah who was on a brief visit to Qatar yesterday held talks with the Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. The talks focused on regional and international issues and ways to bolster bilateral relations.
The session was attended by the Heir Apparent H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
On the Jordanian side, it was attended by Prince Ali bin Al Hussein and Chief of Royal Hashemite Court Dr Khaled Karaki and Jordanian Ambassador to Qatar Ahmed Jalal Al Mefleh.
The Emir and H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser hosted a luncheon banquet at Al Wajba Palace in honour of King Abdullah and Queen Rania.
[The Peninsula Qatar] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya -- Benghazi Cathedral was once the largest cathedral in North Africa. Today, it's the biggest reminder of Benghazi's lost promise, an imposing monument to eastern Libya's neglect under Moammar Gadhafi.
The pews are long gone, as are various plans for how to make use of the building: as a mosque, the party headquarters for the Arab Socialist Union or a stock market office.
Today, the only signs of life are the pigeons that flutter toward one of two still-magnificent domes on the rare occasions when someone opens the front door. Audiotapes of speeches by the late Egyptian President and Arab nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser and shattered plates depicting Gadhafi litter the floor.
[Miami Herald] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
The Twitter feed of James Foley (MSJ '08) ends April 4, when he remarked about the sunset prayers of Libyan citizens contrasting with rockets over the city of Brega. He sent one more message before the feed's abrupt end, signifying the moment he and three colleagues were captured by forces loyal to Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi.
More than two weeks later, journalists Foley, Clare Gillis, Manu Brabo and Anton Hammerl remain in custody with little to no information from the Libyan government about any potential release.
Foley's parents said they do not believe much progress has been made. His mother Diane Foley said they are relying almost entirely on the Turkish embassy in Libya to provide an avenue for release.
[Daily North Western] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
ROME, April 19 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan crisis faces the risk of turning into a "prolonged conflict" which will end up splitting the country in two, a leading Italian expert said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
"I see no immediate solution to the conflict between NATO forces and the Libyan rebels on one side, and Muammar Gaddafi on the other. The ongoing civil war is fated to become an internal cancer that will destroy territorial unity and lead to a partition," Giuseppe Sacco, a professor of international relations at the Rome-based Luiss University said.
According to Sacco, Gaddafi will not easily surrender and will fight till the very end, while rebels of the Transitional National Council (TNC) will pursue a tough resistance. However, the rebels will not be able to oust Gaddafi from the country on their own.
[Xinhuanet] MoreWednesday, 20 April, 2011:
In reporting on the Libyan conflict, China's media "emphasize only the humanitarian disasters caused by Western air bombardments, and [report] sparingly if at all on the violent suppression and massacre of the people by Qaddafi," Al-Jazeera's Beijing bureau chief, Ezzat Shahrour, writes on his blog. Chinese readers so far have been largely supportive of his viewpoint.
China censored the word "Egypt" back in January, then launched a vigorous campaign to suppress domestic critics for fear of homegrown revolution. So perceptions that state media are siding with Muammar Qaddafi's authoritarian leadership are no surprise.
More remarkable is that Shahrour's April 15 analysis was written in Chinese, was read at least 100,000 times, and has attracted many hundreds of comments.
[CPJ] More

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011:
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK, April 18 (Reuters) - Halliburton Co's (HAL.N) quarterly profit topped Wall Street forecasts as a surge in the oilfield services company's North American operations overshadowed the impact of a shutdown in Libya.
Halliburton's oil-producing customers are spending more on new projects to take advantage of high oil prices, which surged above $100 per barrel in late February and have remained strong due to turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa.
Yet the unrest in Libya prompted the United Nations to impose economic sanctions on the country, forcing energy companies to pull out and leading to a $46 million charge for Halliburton.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
TUNIS, April 18 (Reuters) - NATO air strikes destroyed the main telecommunications tower in the city of Sirte on Monday, Libyan state news agency Jana said.
Citing an engineer in the city 450 km (281 miles) east of the capital Tripoli, Jana said "the bombardment of the colonial and crusader aggressors" also hit two other telecommunications stations there early in the morning.
"The three stations provide telephone services for residents across Libya. The stations also provide communications networks for the fire brigades, rescue services and hospitals," it said.
Western officials say NATO is targeting only military targets consistent with the alliance's U.N.-mandated campaign to impose a no-fly zone and protect Libyan civilians from Muammar Gaddafi's forces.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
Libya's New York-based deputy ambassador to the UN and one of his colleagues have been placed on a hit list since they denounced Muammar al-Qaddafi, he told Fox News on Monday.
The official, Ibrahim Dabbashi, said a "friendly and reliable source in Tripoli" warned him that he and Ambassador Abdurrahman Shalgam must remain alert to ensure that "Qaddafi's hired killers cannot carry out their assignment."
Dabbashi said he and Shalgam were placed on an "assassin's hit list" since denouncing Qaddafi.
Dabbashi said he did not have specific information on the threat, which he considers to be serious. He said he remains vigilant, but feels relatively safe due to additional security measures.
[FOX News] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Libyan rebels will not sell any additional oil until production resumes from two key fields that suffered battle damage in the breakaway east, the region's top oil official said Monday.
The repairs — which rebels say could be completed in weeks — are a priority for opposition forces that are counting on oil revenues to maintain the fight against Moammar Gadhafi's stronger military.
Wahid Bughaigis, who serves as oil minister for the rebel-held eastern swath of the country, said a main challenge was finding parts to repair damaged generators and other sites at the Messla and Sarir fields, which the rebels maintain were hit by pro-Gadhafi forces. The government, however, has blamed British warplanes for the damage — a charge NATO had denied.
[AP] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
Misrata: A ferry has rescued almost 1,000 people from Misrata and Britain said it plans to pick up 5,000 more, as UN officials said Moamer Gaddafi government has guaranteed "safe passage" for foreign aid workers and to let a UN mission into the besieged port city.
The safe passage was part of an accord on humanitarian access to the capital and other Libyan cities secured in Tripoli on Sunday by UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, said deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq.
The Gaddafi government also agreed to let a UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs mission into Misrata, said UN humanitarian spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker.
"We want to assess the situation and determine the needs with our own eyes," Bunker told AFP.
[ZeeNews] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
LONDON, April 18 (Reuters) - Libya's National Oil Corporation has protested to OPEC about help fellow member Qatar is giving to Libyan rebels, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.
The complaint by Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of NOC, hints at rising political tension as a result of the Libyan crisis within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps more than a third of the world's oil.
His letter to OPEC described the Qatari action as "very unfortunate," said one of the sources, who declined to be identified because the source is not authorised to speak to journalists.
[Reuters] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Hip-hop artists don't often smile, so it was no surprise that Libyan rapper MC Swat scowled suspiciously when I first walked into his cramped, cigarette smoke-filled studio in a former government building in Benghazi.
This is where MC Swat, 23, has been writing scathing lyrics about the Gadhafi regime ever since Libya's uprising began in February.
Libyan musicians and artists probably have a right to be wary of strangers. For decades, they say, they feared agents and paid informants of Moammar Gadhafi's repressive regime who reported to the government any work they deemed hostile to the state.
[CNN] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
Not long ago, a Harvard colleague wrote to me that Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, a son of Libya’s dictator, would be in town and wanted to meet me. He is an interesting fellow, my colleague said, with a doctorate from the London School of Economics; I would enjoy talking to him, and I might be able to help his thinking on economic matters.
The meeting, as it turned out, was a letdown. I was first briefed by a former employee of the Monitor consulting firm, who gently intimated that I should not to expect too much. Saif himself held photocopies of pages from one of my books on which he had scribbled notes. He asked me several questions — about the role of international NGOs, as I recall — that seemed fairly distant from my areas of expertise. I don’t imagine he was much impressed by me; nor was I much taken by him.
[The Star] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
DOHA, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Qatar's Amir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani on Monday met Libya's Transitional National Council Chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the Qatar News Agency reported.
The report said the two discussed the latest developments in Libya, days after the amir said the Gulf emirate was ready to arm the opposition group.
Qatar was the first Arab nation to recognize the Libyan opposition group and has exported two shipments of oil from Tobruk, the main oil hub in the east of Libya.
Sheikh Al-Thani said last Thursday during a visit to the United States that his country stands ready to provide arms to the Libyan opposition on request.
[Xinhuanet] MoreTuesday, 19 April, 2011:
RABAT, April 19 (Reuters) - Morocco hosted a visit by a Libyan deputy foreign minister on Monday, a rare diplomatic link between Muammar Gaddafi's government and one of the staunch allies of the Western coaltion determined to overthrow him.
Morocco has been one of the small number of Arab countries and the only North African state openly involved in talks with Western powers over the Libyan crisis.
State-run 2M television said Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri met Omran Boukraa, the Libyan deputy foreign minister in charge of Arab relations, in Rabat on Monday.
"(Fihri) ... reiterated Morocco's commitment to full respect for Libya's territorial integrity and national unity ... "
[Reuters] More

Monday, 18 April, 2011:
Fighting raged around the Libyan cities of Misrata and Ajdabiya amid conflicting reports that rebels trying to oust Muammar Qaddafi were fleeing.
Rebels in pickup trucks mounted with machine guns were running away from Ajdabiya, according to the New York Times and the Associated Press, while Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya television networks said the rebels had halted Qaddafi’s forces at the Western gate of the city. All the news services have correspondents on the scene.
Shelling in Misrata, the main rebel-held city in the west and Libya’s third-largest city, has killed five people and injured 47 since yesterday, Al-Jazeera reported. Qaddafi’s forces have fired rockets and cluster bombs into residential areas, according to the New York Times and Human Rights Watch.
[Bloomberg] MoreMonday, 18 April, 2011:
Ahmed Algallal, an importer of Kone OYJ (KNEBV) lifts in Libya, spent 14 years in the U.K. because his father preferred exile to life under Muammar Qaddafi. “There won’t be another exile for me,” he said. “We win or die.”
Algallal, 42, is part of the patchwork for a new civil society taking shape in Benghazi. While he uses his contacts to secure food and medicine supplies for the front lines, students clean the streets, and teachers and longshoremen organize themselves in tents outside the old courthouse.
The rebels are drawing on the very system of grassroots bodies that Qaddafi outlined in his Green Book, a 1975 manifesto of his revolutionary philosophy. This time, instead of being a means to suppress political parties and keep tabs on local residents, the groups are delegating responsibility and solidifying their grip.
[Bloomberg] MoreMonday, 18 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — With most of his flock having fled Libya's violence, Tripoli's Roman Catholic bishop now focuses on keeping the power struggle between Moammar Gadhafi and anti-government rebels out of his church.
But it's getting harder.
After a recent Mass, several Muslim women, all Gadhafi supporters, followed Bishop Giovanni Martinelli into the vestry, tearfully demanding that he call the Vatican to get the pope to halt NATO airstrikes.
Some of his parishioners, especially African migrant workers, have been using his St. Francis Church as a sanctuary, saying they dread going into the streets because they are frequently stopped and harassed by Gadhafi's security forces.
[AP] MoreMonday, 18 April, 2011:
The motion ‘This House believes that Arabs, not Nato, should be dealing with Libya,’ will be contested at the latest Doha Debate today at Qatar Foundation Headquarters at 7.30pm.
Debates’ chairman Tim Sebastian said that opinion in the Arab world was sharply divided between supporters of Western intervention and those favouring a regional response to the conflict.
“While no-one doubts that the Arab League has a dismal record in resolving crises among its members, there is a growing sense that Western actions are driven more by oil than humanitarian concerns,” he said.
“We are looking forward to hearing from the Arabs in our audience on whether there is an alternative course of action to Nato airstrikes and what they expect of their governments,” Sebastian added.
[Gulf Times] MoreMonday, 18 April, 2011:
THE Obama administration is looking for a country in Africa willing to provide refuge to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi if he can be forced out of power.
Almost a month after US and allied military operations started air attacks to stop the dictator bombing his people, Gaddafi and his sons continue to resist international demands that they leave.
But three officials from the Obama administrations confirmed to The New York Times that a quiet but intense search was under way for a country prepared to offer exile as pressure builds for the dictator's removal.
The key to the search is to find a nation, most likely in Africa, that is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that requires countries to hand over anyone indicted for trial by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
[The Australian] MoreMonday, 18 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya — Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the influential second son of Moammar Gaddafi who was once seen as the great hope for reform in Libya, is clear on two points: He and his government have done nothing wrong, and they are not going to back down.
In an interview that reflected the defiance of the Gaddafi family more than two months into its efforts to put down a rebellion supported by the United States and its allies, the 38-year-old said the world had gone to war with Libya based on nothing more than rumor and propaganda.
In Saif Gaddafi’s telling, he has been betrayed by his “best friend,” who defected to join the rebels. His father’s government is besieged by al-Qaeda. And President Obama has proved no different than his predecessor, George W. Bush.
[Washington Post] MoreMonday, 18 April, 2011:
The United States and Libya have clashed at least three times since 1981.
Indeed, just 25 years ago, on April 14, 1986, 24 Air Force F-111s targeting Libya took off from an English Royal Air Force base as I watched.
There is irony of the current actions in Libya. This time the French, along with Great Britain, were the first to suggest military action.
I recall that in 1986 the French government harmed a planned air strike against Muammar Gaddafi. It did so by forbidding the overflight of its land by any nation's fighter planes. It further informed Gaddafi of plans to initiate a strike upon him.
Years earlier, in 1981, the national coastal boundary of most nations bordering the seas was 30 miles. However, Gaddafi tried asserting his power, establishing Libya's territorial limit at 250 miles out into the Mediterranean.
[The Spectrum] MoreMonday, 18 April, 2011:
While President Obama and his coalition partners congratulate themselves on preventing a massacre in Benghazi, violence continues to rage in other parts of Libya, despite a Nato-led campaign to protect civilians.
Indeed, a humanitarian disaster is unfolding in Misurata, Zintan and other Libyan towns as the world and Nato watch from the sidelines.
From the outset, the United States' hand-over of its military leadership role to Nato was eyed with scepticism and unease by Libyans within the country and abroad. It was feared that the cumbersome command structure of the alliance would not be as efficient and effective as the coalition of the United States, Britain and France in halting Col Muammar Qaddafi's military operations against his people.
[The National] More

Sunday, 17 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — Libyan rebels say they have begun receiving arms shipments from abroad, although there has been no independent confirmation of that.
The rebel military leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, on Saturday said in an interview with Al Arabiya, a satellite news channel, that his forces had received weapons supplies from unidentified nations that support their uprising.
A spokesman for the rebels' National Transitional Council, Mustafa Gheriani, confirmed Younes' statement but also refused to provide details.
On Thursday, the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, told CNN that his country would provide weapons to the rebels and that deliveries of antitank weapons might already have reached them.
[Statesman] MoreSunday, 17 April, 2011:
AJDABIYA, Libya (AP) — The Libyan revolution has been tough on rebel fighter and guitarist Massoud Abu Assir’s rock band.
His bass player was captured by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, and his drummer is off fighting on the front line.
But those setbacks haven’t stopped the 38-year-old amateur musician from composing songs in support of the revolution and performing them for rebels on the battlefield. He made an appearance Saturday on the outskirts of the front -line city of Ajdabiya as fierce fighting raged about 25 miles (40 kilometers) away.
“My homeland will be strong. My homeland will be free. We will take our homeland up high,” he sang in folksy Arabic verse, reminiscent of Bob Dylan.
Several dozen rebels crowded around as he sang, clapping their hands and joining in. One rebel enthusiastically fired his AK-47 in the air.
[Lubbock Online] MoreSunday, 17 April, 2011:
SOMERS POINT, N.J.—
Residents of a southern New Jersey town named after a Navy hero in the First Barbary War are hoping the turmoil in Libya will lead to the return of his remains.
Navy Master Commandant Richard Somers was born in 1778 in an area that now bears his name. He was ordered in 1804 to blow up the explosive-laden USS Intrepid amid the Libyan fleet in Tripoli Harbor in hopes of bringing a quick end to the war.
The vessel, however, exploded prematurely, killing Somers and 12 crewmen. They were buried in Libya, and efforts to bring the remains back to the United States have spanned a century.
A bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday calling on the Defense Secretary to "take whatever steps may be necessary" to bring Somers and his 12 comrades home, the Press of Atlantic City reported.
[Chicago Tribune] MoreSunday, 17 April, 2011:
Washington (CNN) -- Two years ago during a little-covered press conference in Trinidad and Tobago, President Barack Obama offered an early glimpse of how his administration would approach foreign policy when he said, "There aren't junior partners and senior partners in the international stage."
"We're only one nation, and that the problems that we confront, whether it's drug cartels, climate change, terrorism, you name it, can't be solved just by one country," he said. He invoked this theme of multilateralism and intenrational legitimacy all through the 2008 campaign as a way to restore America's image overseas. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put a finer point on the idea when she said the U.S. would lead by building and empowering "a network of alliances and partnerships, regional organizations and global institutions."
[CNN] MoreSunday, 17 April, 2011:
Nato's secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen says civilians will not be safe in Libya until Colonel Gaddafi is removed from power.
But speaking after a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Berlin, Mr Fogh Rasmussen reiterated that NATO was strictly conforming to the UN mandate to protect civilians, and 'regime change' was not part of their operation.
Earlier, in an open letter the British, French and American leaders insisted Colonel Gaddafi had to go. Mr Rasmussen said although he was not consulted about the letter, he was happy with what it said.
[BBC] MoreSunday, 17 April, 2011:
N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Chad's foreign minister on Saturday rejected allegations by Libyan rebels fighting the government of leader Muammar Gaddafi that Chadian officers were fighting alongside Gaddafi's soldiers.
Moussa Faki Mahmat, addressing diplomatic envoys to the Central African state's capital, said a report by the Libyan transitional national council and submitted to the U.N. Security Council that alleged Chadian army officers were in Libya was untrue.
"We want to formally deny those accusations and, as proof, the officers mentioned in the report are here present," Mahmat said, pointing to nine soldiers seated in the room.
Rebels say Gaddafi has brought in African mercenaries from countries such as Chad and Zimbabwe to help Libyan troops trying to put down the uprising against Gaddafi's rule.
[Reuters] MoreSunday, 17 April, 2011:
HMS Liverpool has stopped a suspect car ferry entering Libya as part of the Nato arms blockade, the Ministry of Defence said.
The Portsmouth-based destroyer leapt into action to board the roll-on, roll-off ferry Setubal Express, which was sailing from Malta toward the Libyan capital Tripoli with a cargo of vehicles.
The crew suspected cargo was onboard which could be used by forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi.
Liverpool sailors boarded the ferry and discovered the ship’s cargo record book ‘contained irregularities’, the MoD said.
As a result, the vessel was ordered not to enter Libyan territorial waters and to redirect to Salerno, Italy.
[Ports Mouth] MoreSunday, 17 April, 2011:
CAIRO, April 15 (Reuter) - Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi killed seven rebel fighters and wounded 11 in attacks on the town of Yafran in western Libya on Friday, a rebel spokesman told Al Jazeera television.
The spokesman read out the names of the dead rebels on the Qatar-based satellite channel. Yafran is part of the Western Mountains region, an area inhabited by Berbers who are ethnically distinct from most Libyans.
[Reuters] More

Saturday, 16 April, 2011:
Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time, according to senior NATO and U.S. officials. The shortage of European munitions, along with the limited number of aircraft available, has raised doubts among some officials about whether the United States can continue to avoid returning to the air campaign if Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi hangs on to power for several more months.
[Washington Post] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have fired cluster bombs into residential areas of the besieged city of Misrata, according to witnesses.
Human Rights Watch reported that four cluster bombs exploded in the city on Thursday and Friday, and two Libyan residents of Misrata told the Guardian that they suspected the munitions were being used.
Cluster bombs, banned by most countries in the world, explode in midair, indiscriminately throwing out dozens of high-explosive bomblets which cause widespread damage and injuries over a large area. The submunitions often fail to explode on impact but detonate when stepped on or picked up.
The claims came as the leaders of US, Britain and France committed their countries to pursue military action until Colonel Gaddafi has been removed from power.
[Guardian] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya—Rebels here have drafted a constitution that calls for full equality regardless of gender, race or religion, part of their effort to convince the world they are committed to democracy and deserve international support.
The document represents a milestone in the rebels' effort to move rapidly from a grass-roots uprising to a government with all the trappings of statehood.
The progress in Benghazi contrasted with the rebel fighters' struggle to make gains in the military battle against Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces. President Barack Obama, in an interview with the Associated Press, said the fight was at a stalemate, but that Col. Gadhafi was under growing pressure to quit.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
(Reuters) - Switzerland is set to remove former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa from its sanctions list, a government spokeswoman said on Friday, following a similar move by the European Union.
In a move by the West to encourage more defections from Muammar Gaddafi's regime, the EU has lifted a freeze on the assets of Koussa, who fled to Britain on March 30. The United States lifted sanctions against him on April 4.
"The Swiss sanctions list will be adapted analogously to that of the EU," Antje Baertschi, spokeswoman for the State Secretariat for Economics (SECO) told Reuters. The SECO oversees the sanctions list.
Switzerland has sought to improve its image as a haven for ill-gotten assets and in February froze assets of 29 Libyans linked to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
[Reuters] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Last semester, the Libyan government was paying to send Issa Hakim to the United States to get a PhD in mechanical engineering.
This semester, the 35-year-old Hakim is back in Libya, patrolling the desert in a pick-up truck and carrying a machine-gun as he fights to overthrow that government.
On Friday, the grad student was able to return to a classroom at Lehigh University. Speaking via Skype live video-conference call, he talked to dozens of students and faculty about his role in a rebel army that is trying to bring an end to the 42-year regime of Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi.
[Metro News] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ruled out sending more aircraft to participate in the NATO mission over Libya, saying any such commitment requires consultation in Parliament.
His comment Friday came as NATO failed for a second day to find new ground-attack aircraft for the fight against Moammar Gadhafi's forces in Libya, but Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expects the additional planes soon.
Harper, speaking Friday on the campaign trail, said Canada is making a "significant contribution" and believes Gadhafi's leadership must "end" in order to fully protect the civilian population. But Harper reiterated his government has been clear that it will not put Canadian soldiers on the ground in Libya.
[CBC] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
Thuraya is convinced she’s a political leader and a mother.
Neither is true: Since the 24-year-old’s home came under fire and loyalists to Moammar Gaddafi overran her town, she is no longer aware that she isn’t married, has no children and lives at home with her parents.
Doctors at the Benghazi psychiatric hospital, where she has been committed, say she has detached herself from reality to deal with the fear and stress caused by the fight between Gaddafi’s forces and rebels that has torn Libya apart.
It is easy to see the bloody wounds of those injured in attacks in the besieged western city of Misurata and on the eastern front line, but at this sprawling hospital the invisible mental scars run deep and will continue to grow, psychiatrists say.
[Washington Post] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
The oil price has skyrocketed over the past few months. The finger has been pointed at the troubles in Libya and claims of supply disruptions have dominated the press. However, are these claims grounded in fact or are we watching yet another sentiment driven bubble? What are the issues we should be aware of and how should we best invest in the face of such turmoil?
Expectations are often more damaging than reality
Libya's contribution to global oil production is in stark contrast to the column inches it has been awarded in the press. As quoted by the National Journal, the country produces around 2% of the world's oil.
[Huffington Post] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
As if to show the world that she too, like all members of the Al Qathafi family are still in Libya, early Friday morning the Libyan leader's only daughter, 35-year-old Ayesha, a lawyer by profession, delivered a defiant message to hundreds of supporters from her father's compound at Bab al-Aziziya in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
This must have been the only time that Ayesha has publicly come out in full support of her father. To anti-NATO slogans and dancing by the gathering to Arabic music, she addressed the crowd from the second floor balcony of the compound that a few days ago was targeted by NATO airstrikes.
She compared the current NATO strikes on Libya to the 1986 bombing. She said: “They dropped their rockets and bombs on us (in 1986), and they tried to kill me.
[Tripoli Post] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
Vendors still set up cardboard boxes and plywood tables on the dust-swept outskirts of this eastern rebel stronghold, shouting out the prices of goods from shampoo to bananas, cactuses and lamps as hundreds of shoppers file by.
But the migrant workers who once shopped at the market are largely absent, the prices of goods like eggs and cooking oil are rising, and green, red and black rebel flags -- as well as some maroon and white Qatari emblems -- are now on sale.
War has cut the market off from traditional supply routes to the capital Tripoli and other western cities, and the merchants who came to buy and sell livestock and produce no longer arrive.
[Reuters] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
Refugees fleeing war-torn Libya continue to cross into southern Tunisia. The border town of Ras Jedir looks much the same as it did weeks ago, but now a growing number of Libyan families are leaving their homeland behind.
The number of refugees arriving from Libya totals roughly 7,000 people a day, including more than 160 families every day, according to Youssef Amr Moussa, a relief committee member and a Libyan refugee. He said he expects that number to climb to 50,000 a day by the end of the month.
Describing the conditions in Moamer Kadhafi's Libya, Moussa, who also was an electrical engineer and consultant for the General People's Committee in Libya, said, "The situation in Libya is grave, as Kadhafi targeted innocent civilians and closed down some areas, including the Nafusa Mountains, which have been deprived of fuel and provisions since February 17."
[Magharebia] MoreSaturday, 16 April, 2011:
PARIS — Legal specialists from Libya's opposition movement are visiting Paris to get advice about how to write a new constitution and build state institutions — in case Moammar Gadhafi's regime is ousted one day.
The Foreign Ministry says the three-person delegation from the opposition National Transitional Council is meeting officials from parliament, and the ministry's legal adviser among other judicial experts.
Salwa Daghili, a French-trained legal scholar who heads the council's judicial committee, said by phone Friday she and two other envoys arrived Wednesday from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
France is among the strongest foreign supporters of the Libyan opposition.
[Canadian Press] More

Friday, 15 April, 2011:
Government restrictions on the media in the parts of Libya controlled by Moammar Gadhafi make it difficult to get uncensored news out of Tripoli. But a VOA correspondent has contacts in Libya and has received videos over the Internet that apparently show examples of government repression. We want to to share these videos with you and dissect what it is they show.
This is just a sample of the amateur videos sent to a correspondent's email account at Voice of America. The sender is a source I trust, and have used before. This source says the video shows forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi abusing volunteer soldiers and rebel prisoners.
[VOA News] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States say the NATO coalition will continue its military campaign in Libya until Moammar Gadhafi leaves power, while rebels said loyalist attacks killed 23 people in the besieged city of Misrata.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that leaving Mr. Gadhafi in power would be an "unconscionable betrayal" of the Libyan people.
In a joint article published in several international newspapers, The Times of London, France's Le Figaro and The Washington Post , the leaders wrote it is "unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government."
[VOA News] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
President Barack Obama said the coalition acting to keep Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi from attacking his people would have been impossible without the support of the tiny Gulf Arab nation of Qatar.
"We would not have been able, I think, to shape the kind of broad-based international coalition that includes not only our Nato members but also includes Arab states, without the emir's leadership," Obama told reporters after a meeting in the Oval Office with Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. "He is motivated by a belief that the Libyan people should have the rights and freedoms of all people."
Officials in Doha confirmed that the Gulf state is supplying anti-tank weapons to Libyan rebels in Benghazi as part of its strategy of working to overthrow the Gaddafi regime.
[Guardian] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
Moussa Koussa, the defected former Libyan foreign minister, was removed from the list of Libyan officials under European Union and British sanctions, the U.K. government said.
Koussa fled from Libya to Britain at the end of March, and he faced questioning in Scotland over his role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. Lifting the sanctions removed an asset freeze and a travel ban placed on Koussa.
“Sanctions are introduced to invoke behavioral change and as (Moussa Koussa) has chosen to leave the regime he is no longer sanctioned in this way,” said a U.K. The European move follows similar action 10 days ago by the U.S., which sought to encourage more defectors with its quick action. Thus far, there have been few others taking the carrot.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
ROME—Eni SpA, Italy's biggest energy company by market value, said Thursday it plans to transport as much as possible of its own oil stored in a Western Libyan terminal to Venice for safety reasons.
"We are trying to lift as much equity oil as possible" from the Mellitah terminal via a tanker to Venice, said an Eni spokesman.
"No specific time frame is available, but we hope to have one [tanker] in a few days," he added.
The crude had been stored before Eni stopped all its oil production due to the safety threat posed by the fighting between forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi and the rebels.
Eni is the foreign oil company with the biggest operations in Libya, a former colony of Italy.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri incites Muslims to rise up against both NATO and Moamer Kadhafi's forces in a newly released video apparently taped before the Western intervention in Libya.
Zawahiri, wearing a white robe, was speaking in a one hour and nine minute video produced by Al-Qaeda?s media arm, as-Sahab, according to the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamic extremist websites.
SITE said Zawahiri split his lecture into three distinct parts, addressing in turn the uprisings in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia.
[AFP] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
The leader of Libya's National Transitional Council, Mahmud Jibril, was supposed to be in Washington today and tomorrow to meet with administration officials and senators, but was forced to postpone his trip at the last minute due to a cancelled flight.
"Dr Jibril's commercial flight to the United States was cancelled and he is unable to attend the meeting. We hope to reschedule in the near future," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) said in a statement. Jibril was scheduled to have coffee with SFRC members today.
Jibril was also set to meet with Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, some Pentagon officials, and give a speech Friday at the Center for International and Strategic Studies. He was not scheduled to meet with any White House or National Security Council senior officials.
[Foreign Policy] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya -- Moammar Gadhafi rolled defiantly through the streets of Tripoli, pumping his fists as he stood up through the sun roof of a sport utility vehicle Thursday -- the same day that NATO airstrikes shook the city.
The alliance's foreign ministers, while united in their aim to pressure the Libyan leader to go, argued at a meeting over whether to step up military operations that have so far failed to rout him.
Gadhafi gave no sign that he's willing to relent, despite two months of civil war and mounting international pressure for him to move aside. Instead, his loyalists pounded rebel positions in the besieged western city of Misrata with dozens of rockets for several hours, killing at least 13 people.
[Mercury News] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
UNITED NATIONS, April 14 (Reuters) - U.N. Security Council plans to expand a list of Libyan individuals and firms subject to U.N. sanctions have hit a snag due to Russian, Chinese and Indian demands for more time, diplomats said on Thursday.
Diplomats said the resistance of the three countries was worrying, since they have become increasingly critical of the U.N.-approved no-fly zone and air strikes officially intended to protect civilians in Libya but which critics say are aimed at supporting rebels seeking to overthrow the government.
"We'd rather not see a big split in the international community on Libya at this crucial time," a Western diplomat told Reuters. "Let's hope they come around and join the consensus (on expanding the sanctions). The point is to reduce the ability of the Gaddafi regime to attack its own people."
[Reuters] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
Prisoners loyal to Col Gaddafi and eyewitnesses in Misurata, the largest city in western Libya partially under rebel control, have given accounts of highly-trained women snipers from the South American country operating in the area.
Mercenaries fighting for Col Gaddafi's regime are reportedly being paid up to $1,000 a day.
None of the Colombians have yet been captured or killed but according to rebels they are part of a wider force of snipers basing themselves on high buildings in Misurata.
The female fighters are likely to be members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has been fighting Colombia's government since the 1960s.
[Telegraph] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya — A man bends over, pretending to work on his car, muttering “just keep walking.” A long wait, a brief, coded phone call — and a car stops. A door swings open. “Get in,” the man in the front tells two reporters. “If anyone stops us, just say we are going to the fish market.”
In Moammar Gaddafi’s Tripoli, under a shroud of fear and suspicion, a clandestine opposition movement is struggling to reorganize after February’s protests were brutally suppressed. As rebels in eastern Libya continue to hold territory and fight for more, resistance to the government in the capital is taking peaceful and violent forms.
“People are ready for suicide bombings,” the man, a leader of the anti-Gaddafi insurgency, later told two reporters over coffee and a cigarette in a safe house somewhere in the city. Gaddafi, the man said, often salutes adoring crowds standing through the open roof of his car. “We can get near him,” the insurgent said.
[Washington Post] MoreFriday, 15 April, 2011:
MIAMI, April 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Gaddafi Terror Victims Initiative praised the National Transitional Council (NTC) of Libya today for pledging to fully cooperate in assisting international victims and exposing the truth about Muammar Gaddafi's direct role in committing numerous atrocities and crimes against humanity. Crimes include the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 and providing plastic explosives to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 1980s for acts of terrorism against civilian populations.
The NTC has provided evidence of Gaddafi's crimes and made clear its commitment to expose the truth about his regime's many nefarious activities. This is the first time since Gaddafi took power 42 years ago that the Libyan people have had an opportunity to speak freely about him and the crimes committed by his regime.
[PRN] More

Thursday, 14 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON – U.S. warplanes have bombed three ground targets in Libya since the Obama administration announced earlier this month that America was shifting to a support role in the NATO-led air campaign, the Pentagon acknowledged.
Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said Wednesday that U.S. fighter jets have attacked Libyan air defense sites to support the no-fly zone imposed last month under a United Nations mandate to deter attacks against civilians by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.
Administration officials previously said that the U.S. had halted strike sorties on April 4, several days after turning over command of the air campaign to the NATO alliance, and that attacks on Libyan tanks and other ground units would be handled by aircraft from Britain, France and other allies.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
(Reuters) - Diplomats will make a new effort to forge an end to the Libyan civil war Thursday, after agreeing to call for Muammar Gaddafi to leave power but failing to forge a unified strategy to force him out.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Arab League head Amr Moussa and officials from the African Union and Organization of the Islamic Conference will discuss Libya at Arab League headquarters in Cairo.
Foreign ministers from a group of Western powers and Middle Eastern states met Wednesday in Qatar and jointly called for the first time for an end to Gaddafi's 41-year rule.
Britain and France are leading air strikes against Gaddafi's forces, but have grown frustrated with the lack of support from NATO allies.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
PARIS — France has sent an aid plane to the besieged Libyan city of Benghazi, the first since the imposition of a no-fly zone to protect rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi's army, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.
The plane, an Airbus A340, landed in the eastern Libyan city on Wednesday afternoon carrying 10 tones of medical equipment at the request of the Libyan national transitional council, which is fighting to end Gaddafi's 41-year rule.
France sent two aid planes to Benghazi in late February, before coalition air strikes started in mid-March, marking the start of a major humanitarian mission.
"We remain committed to this objective. Dealing with this humanitarian crisis is a priority," the spokesman said.
[MSNBC] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
A Libyan-American telecom exec in Abu Dhabi has launched an independent phone network in Libya, connecting users in rebel-held parts of east Libya whose network had been shut down by Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi.
"For almost a month no one could call into Libya," said Ousama Abushagur, 31, who has family members in east Libya. "It was totally blocked off and monitored by Ghadafi's men."
Critically, rebel groups couldn't communicate during military operations, and according to some reports, resorted to hand gestures and flags during fights.
In February, Ghadafi took control of his country's telecom operator, Libyana Mobile Phone, and routed all calls through centralized systems in government-held Tripoli.
[PCMag] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
(RTTNews) - A envoy of the Libya's Transitional National Council (TNC), an opposition group fighting the regime of authoritarian leader Moammar Qadhafi, is expected to visit Washington later this week to hold talks with senior US administration and defense officials, the State Department announced Wednesday.
According to State Department spokesman Mark Toner, Mahmoud Jibril is visiting the United States in an effort to convince Washington to provide greater support to the rebel movement trying to topple the repressive Qadhafi regime in Libya.
Toner said Jibril is expected to arrive in the United States on Thursday and added that the Libyan would hold talks with senior Pentagon and State Department officials as well as members of Congress in the course of his visit. But Toner did not specify when those talks would take place.
[RTT] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
Libyan rebels refused to meet defector Musa Kusa yesterday, accusing Colonel Gaddafi’s former foreign minister of having blood on his hands.
In a rebuke for Britain’s policy of cosseting the former intelligence chief, they said he had no role to play in the movement to replace Gaddafi.
Musa Kusa, who is accused of being involved in the Lockerbie bombing and the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, was allowed by ministers to fly to Qatar yesterday for an international summit on Libya.
Diplomatic officials let him go because they wanted him to talk to Arab leaders about how to oust Gaddafi – even though victims of Lockerbie want to see him put on trial.
But Kusa was snubbed by the Libyan Interim National Council which has emerged as the government in waiting.
[Daily mail] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
Tony Blair has defended his “great” deal in the desert with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi because it “welcomed” the Libyan leader’s decision to give up terrorism. The former Prime Minister shook hands with Col. Gaddafi after talks in Libya in 2004 and re-opened diplomatic links.
David Cameron has criticised Mr Blair’s government for conducting “dodgy deals in the desert” after Gaddafi regime used air attacks and tanks in attempts to crush rebels.
“When Libya was prepared to give up sponsoring terrorism and support the fight against it, to give up its chemical and nuclear weapons, that was good and we were right to welcome it,” he said.
“We are right, equally, to condemn what has happened now and in the last weeks.
[Telegraph] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, April 13 (Reuters) - Libya said on Wednesday it had reserves in gold and other assets that would help its people cope with sanctions, but it also called for funds it holds abroad to be "unfrozen immediately" for humanitarian needs.
Planning and Finance Minister Abdulhafid Zlitni estimated that about $120 billion of Libya's assets had been frozen as part of sanctions, but that the North African country still had significant "contingency reserves," without giving details.
He also told a news conference there were "no legal grounds" for diverting Libyan assets to rebels fighting the government of Muammar Gaddafi.
"We have confidence that the banks cannot do that, they don't have the legal grounds to do it," Zlitni said.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
Doha: The Deputy Emir and Heir Apparent H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani inaugurated the first consultative meeting of the Political Contact group on Libya at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel yesterday.
The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani and a number of their excellencies Sheikhs and ministers attended the meeting along with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and heads of diplomatic missions accredited to Qatar and representatives of a number of international organisations.
The Heir Apparent in his opening address said that the tragedy of the Libyan people is not a natural catastrophe, but it’s a result of a political situation and political decision.
From that respect, the Heir Apparent said, the resolutions of the UN Security Council, the Arab League and the GCC were not relief or rescue resolutions to the stricken people but they were resolutions of political nature as well.
[The Peninsula Qatar] MoreThursday, 14 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, 13 April 2011 (IRIN) - Al Hawari hospital may be the most modern medical centre in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, but the large number of war wounded it has received in the last two months has stretched its limited resources.
"When the fighting began, most of the injured - both civilians and soldiers - were transferred here," said the hospital's senior medical officer Fabri El Jroshi. "We were missing a lot of important equipment to treat them, and we still are. We need material for fractures and fixtures and we badly need more nursing staff.
"Sometimes patients will find a doctor here, but no equipment for fixing a broken bone."
The 500-bed hospital has received 800-1,000 patients with war-related problems, El Jroshi told IRIN.
[IRIN] More

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011:
A fierce battle continued over the course of Tuesday as Libyan government artillery pounded the besieged city of Misurata and further shelling targeted the cities of Zintan and Ajdabiya.
Pro-democracy fighters said they had beaten back two offensives by troops loyal to longterm leader Muammar Gaddafi in Misurata, 200km east of capital Tripoli.
"There was heavy fighting in Tripoli Street and the rebels held their positions. Also, very intense fighting occurred on the eastern side of Misurata on the Nak el Theqeel road. The rebels repelled the attack," a spokesman who identified himself as Mohamad Abu Shaara told Reuters by telephone.
[Aljazeera] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
The former Libyan foreign minister, who defected from Col Muammar's Gaddafi regime just two weeks ago, left his MI6 safe house yesterday to depart for the Gulf state. Qatar is co-chairing with Britain the first meeting of the Libya contact group.
As a recent member of Col Gaddafi's inner circle, Mr Koussa will offer insights to ministers and diplomats in the wings of the summit on the need to keep up the pressure to topple a divided regime.
"He's a Gaddafi insider. He may be able to offer solutions where others are falling short," said a Whitehall source. The talks in Doha will be dominated by discussions on overthrowing Col Gaddafi. The meeting will be attended by foreign ministers and officials from the British, French and American-led Libya coalition of 20 countries. Also present will be Nato, the United Nations, European Union, Arab League and African Union.
[Telegraph] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
Iman al-Obeidi, the Libyan woman who says she was raped by pro-Gaddafi militia, has given the most detailed account to date of her ordeal.
Obeidi told two American journalists she was repeatedly raped by 15 men, one allegedly a cousin of Muammar Gaddafi. The interview took place at her home with reporters from the Associated Press and National Public Radio, with no Libyan minders present. It followed an interview she gave to CNN last week.
She said she had been returning from a friend's house on the evening of 24 March when her taxi was stopped at a checkpoint in Tripoli. She was forced into a car when militia discovered that her ID card showed she was from the rebel-held east.
[Guardian] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
When U.N. Resolution 1973 was passed March 17, authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya, Abraidesh was in Libya visiting family in Benghazi, a stronghold of rebels rising up against the reime of Moammar Gadhafi.
Air strikes began the following morning, saving thousands from certain death in Benghazi, including members of her family, she writes.
"U.S. intervention gave Libyans renewed trust in and respect for America. It gave them the hope and energy to continue their battle for justice and democracy. Most importantly, it saved many of their lives."
Born and raised in Portland, Abraibesh attended Westview High School and graduated from Linfield College last spring.
[Oregon Live] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON, April 12 (Xinhua) -- While Libya reels from a civil war between rebels and forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the rebels have sent a representative to Washington in a bid to garner support from the United States.
Indeed, little is known of the group, and some worry that there are members of al-Qaeda within their ranks or on the periphery.
Libyan Interim Transitional National Council representative Ali Aujali, however, said that is not the case, emphasizing that al-Qaeda and other such violent terror organizations have no place in Libya.
"Al-Qaeda should not be involved in any kind of negotiation, or any future government, they have no place in Libya," he said Monday in a talk at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
[Xinhuanet] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
(New York) – Libyan authorities should immediately allow Eman al-‘Obeidy, the woman who alleged that she was raped by Muammar Gaddafi’s security forces, to leave Tripoli for her safety and to receive medical care, Human Rights Watch said today.
“Libyan authorities have further victimized al-‘Obeidy by refusing to let her leave Tripoli,” said Nadya Khalife, the Middle East women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They should ensure that she can leave Tripoli at once to receive supportive medical and psychological care, following the trauma she experienced.”
On April 4, 2011, in two phone interviews with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, al-‘Obeidy confirmed that Libyan authorities had freed her after she was examined by a doctor. She told Cooper that the medical evidence supported her allegations that she had been raped and tortured.
[TTKN] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
RABAT, April 12 (Reuters) - Libya's state-run television said on Tuesday that a NATO air strike on the town of Kikla, south of the capital Tripoli, killed a number of civilians but NATO said the report was misinformation.
"A bombardment by the crusaders' colonial aggression yesterday struck members of the public security force in charge of organising road traffic and checking identities," the Al-Jamahiriya channel said in a written newsflash.
"All the security force members as well as a number of children, women and men were martyred in the attack."
Kikla lies more than 100 km (60 miles) south of Tripoli. Al-Jamahiriya gave no details on the number of casualties in the incident on Monday.
[Reuters] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
More than 500 ethnic Berbers fleeing conflict in western Libya have reached neighbouring Tunisia, the United Nations refugee agency reported today as it steps up support for the new arrivals.
The Berbers who have arrived in the Dehiba area of southern Tunisia have limited resources and “significant humanitarian needs,” said Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The agency has set up a tent camp at a sports field in the town of Remada and electricity, water and other basic services are also being established.
[UN] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
LONDON (Reuters) - Trade house Trafigura plans to export a cargo of Libyan oil from the port of Brega and Vitol has shipped a gasoline cargo into rebel-held Benghazi in signs oil trade is reviving despite heavy fighting.
Trafigura has contacted at least two oil firms to offer a Sarir grade crude sourced from eastern Libya and shipped from Brega, trade sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
"Trafigura has offered a Brega-loading cargo....they are looking for a refiner who can run the oil," said a trader.
A spokesman for Trafigura was unable to give an immediate comment.
[Reuters] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
Sporting a crisp well-tailored grey suit and pink tie, Hamis Mohamed Zuwei looks more like an aspiring banker than a Libyan pro-democracy fighter who took a bullet for the cause.
Limping with crutches into the security office of a Qatari hospital where he has been recovering for the last two weeks from a bullet wound in the leg and shrapnel injuries, Zuwei only wanted to talk about one thing: revolution.
"We are just a group of young people seeking freedom without being organised," Zuwei, 26, says during an interview at the hospital. "We don’t have any military experience; the only objective is to topple [Muammar] Gaddafi."
Less than a dozen injured rebels are receiving medical care in Qatar, after they were airlifted out by a plane delivering aid, he says.
[Aljazeera] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — Khalifa Hifter thought he'd be America's man in Libya.
He'd spent the last 24 years living under what he calls U.S. government protection in suburban northern Virginia. Before he returned to Libya last month, State Department and CIA officials sought him out for meetings. He delivered to them wish lists of weapons and vehicles to bolster the fight against Moammar Gadhafi.
To his frustration, however, U.S. officials haven't contacted him since. They've ignored his pleas for direct military support while the rebels steadily lose ground to Gadhafi's better-equipped forces.
"The United States is a second home to me," Hifter said. "They should be cooperating with me to help the Libyan people."
[Mcclatchydc] MoreWednesday, 13 April, 2011:
Libya's Finance Minister Abdulhafid Zlitni fears the Muammar al-Gaddafi regime may run out of funds within months if there is no quick resolution to the political and military crisis.
Zlitni said the government would double interest rates in the next week in an attempt to encourage citizens to stop hoarding money at home and deposit their cash in banks.
The decision to raise interest rates is one of a number of emergency measures taken by the regime in recent weeks, including the rationing of fuel, restricting cash withdrawals from banks, increasing public sector pay by 50 percent and doubling pensions, the Guardian reports.
[Sify] More

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011:
Reporting from Benghazi, Libya, and Houmt Souk,—
Libyan rebels delivered an emphatic "no" to an African Union proposal for an end to fighting in their country, insisting that Moammar Kadafi must step down from power as part of any diplomatic solution.
The opposition council's announcement after closed-door talks with an African Union delegation in Benghazi quashed hopes for an early end to the nearly 2-month-old conflict between Kadafi's forces and opposition fighters based in eastern Libya.
South African President Jacob Zuma said late Sunday after meeting with Kadafi in Tripoli, the capital, that the Libyan leader had endorsed the African Union's road map for peace.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
LONDON (AP) — The highest profile insider to break with Moammar Gadhafi's regime since Libya's conflict began warned on Monday that the country risked becoming engulfed in civil war like Somalia.
Ex-foreign minister Moussa Koussa, making his first public statement since he fled Tripoli, quit his post and arrived in Britain on March 30, called on Gadhafi and the country's opposition to show restraint.
"I ask everybody, all the parties, to work to avoid taking Libya into a civil war. This will lead to bloodshed and make Libya a new Somalia," said Koussa, who has spent almost two weeks at an undisclosed location in interviews with British intelligence officers and diplomats.
Britain's Foreign Office said Koussa is not being detained by authorities, but have repeatedly declined to discuss the details of his debriefings or comment on his whereabouts.
[AP] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya — Even the Qaddafi government escort could not contain his disbelief at the sloppiness of the fraud: bloodstains his colleagues had left on bedsheets in a damaged hospital room for more than a week as evidence of civilian casualties from Western airstrikes. “This is not even human blood!” the escort erupted to group of journalists, making a gesture with his hands like squeezing a tube. “I told them, ‘Nobody is going to believe this!’ ” he explained, as Elizabeth Palmer, a correspondent for CBS News, later recalled. His name was withheld for his protection.
For the more than 100 international journalists cloistered here at the invitation of the Qaddafi government, its management — or, rather, staging — of public relations provided a singular inside view of how this autocracy functions in a crisis.
[New York Times] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
The Pentagon said Monday the military intervention in Libya cost the United States an estimated $608 million in the first few of weeks of the operation. Spending is down significantly after handing lead of the operation to NATO, though not as much as expected.
Spending for the the first 10 days of intervention, March 19 through Mark 28, was $550 million, officials said late last month. About 60 percent was for munitions. The remaining costs were for the “higher operating tempo” of U.S. forces and of getting them there.
[Worl Mag] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
Tens of thousands of children trapped in intense fighting in Misrata are in serious danger amid concern over a humanitarian crisis in the only city in western Libya not under the control of Muammar Gaddafi.
At least 20 children, mostly under the age of 10, have been killed in the besieged city in the past month, according to Unicef, the UN children's agency. Many more have been injured by gunfire or shrapnel from mortars and tank shells.
Thousands of children are caught in the middle of the battle to control the city that has been raging for more than six weeks. Most lack access to sanitation and safe drinking water, Unicef said.
Shelling by Libyan troops continued on Monday, with al-Jazeera quoting a rebel spokesman as saying five people had been killed and about 20 wounded.
[Guardian] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — Soldiers loyal to Moammar Gadhafi may be torturing and executing rebel prisoners, human rights workers and doctors near the front lines say. The bound and bullet-riddled bodies of three Libyan rebels were found Sunday dumped near a rebel checkpoint east of Ajdabiya, where the rebels and Gadhafi forces have been involved in battles for days, according to the morgue where the bodies were taken.
A human rights worker gathering information for the International Criminal Court said the bodies could be evidence that Gadhafi's forces are committing war crimes.
[USA Today] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
Paris/London - Britain and Italy Monday welcomed as 'sincere' the latest African Union (AU) initiative on Libya but rejected any future role for Moamer Gaddafi or his family in the country's political future.
Speaking after a meeting in London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague, and his Italian counterpart, Franco Frattini, said they both agreed to increase the military pressure on Libya to reach a genuine and verifiable ceasefire.
Frattini said Italy was following the AU initiative 'very closely' and hoped that a 'way forward' could be found. But he added: 'A political perspective for the future of Libya should include the departure of Gaddafi.'
[M&C] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
Amnesty International has today revealed fresh evidence of extrajudicial executions apparently committed by Colonel Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi's forces near the town of Ajdabiya in recent days.
Amnesty International researchers in eastern Libya yesterday saw the bodies of two opposition fighters who had been shot in the back of the head after their hands had been bound behind their backs.
Today they saw a body of another man who had been shot dead while his hands and feet were bound.
“Based on what our delegates have seen in eastern Libya over the last six weeks, the circumstances of these killings strongly suggest that they were carried out by the forces loyal to Colonel al-Gaddafi," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
[Amnesty] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
A 34-year-old New Haven woman is among a group of journalists being held captive in Libya.
Clare Morgana Gillis was captured on Tuesday around 1 p.m., according to Harvard University's history department.
She has done work for USA Today, The Atlantic Monthly and The Christian Science Monitor, according to the Hartford Courant.
Human Rights Watch called her parents, Robert and Jane Gillis, to tell them Clare was being held in Libya.
"So, we've been sort of waiting and watching ever since that point," her father told the Courant.
The Gillis family has had difficulty getting information verified.
[NBC Connecticut] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
The call came late in the evening. It was from one of our "minders," those omnipresent government guardians who monitor our every move as we struggle to report the story of Libya's deadlocked revolution. We cannot leave our hotel without them. If we do we risk arrest. "We are sending a vehicle to pick you up. You must be in front of your hotel in five minutes," the minder told us.
We were being summoned to Bab-al-Azizi, the inner sanctum of Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi. It is a 2.5-square-mile fortified compound near Tripoli's airport that includes a military base, administrative buildings and Gadhafi's principal residence.
Thirty minutes later a Toyota pickup truck pulled up in front of the hotel. With driver and minder in front there was room for four others, but our group was six.
[ABC News] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
Angry demonstrations in an Arab country against his person is not something Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would have expected a few months ago, given his ever-rising star in the Arab world due mostly to his vitriolic swipes at Israel.
This is why it must have been an unexpected surprise, perhaps even something of a shock, when hundreds of protestors took to the streets in Benghazi last week chanting slogans against him and protesting Turkey’s position on Libya.
Judging by what is coming out of that city – where the provisional National Council is based – many members of the anti-Gadhafi opposition feel that Erdoğan and Turkey are indirectly supporting the Gadhafi regime and prolonging its life. What has led them to this conclusion is not hard to guess, of course.
[Hurriyet Daily News] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — William Burns, the number three diplomat at the US State Department, will attend international talks on Libya in Qatar later this week, the State Department said Monday.
"Undersecretary for Political Affairs, William J. Burns will travel to Doha, Qatar, for the meeting of the Contact Group on Libya April 12-13," the State Department said in statement.
"He will be accompanied by Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip H. Gordon and Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman," it added.
The group, set up in late March at a London international conference held to give political leadership to UN-mandated air strikes against Kadhafi's Libya, is to review the state of play four weeks into the military campaign.
[AFP] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
With exquisite irony, China chaired the United Nations Security Council for the month of March when events in Libya provoked international opinion and forced the UN to act to protect civilian opponents of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. The irony lies in moving against Libya despite the People’s Republic of China’s long-standing position opposing interference in other countries’ internal affairs. It is exquisite because the Chinese voted “for” a resolution (1970) that referred Libyan leaders to the International Criminal Court for actions that are similar to what China did to its own protestors in 1989 and did not veto a resolution (1973) authorizing force against Gaddafi.
What happened? Why did China support or facilitate international actions it would undoubtedly have vetoed if directed against itself? What has happened to China’s principle of non-interference?
[Carnegie Endowment] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
United Nations, April 12 (IANS) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to chair an international conference on Libya in Cairo, Thursday to "ensure close coordination" between the world body and main regional organisations, said UN spokesman Martin Nesirky.
The conference is held "to ensure close coordination between the United Nation, the African Union, the League of Arab States, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and the European Union, " Xinhua quoted Nesirky as saying at a daily news briefing here Monday.
The secretary-general supports efforts and initiatives that help achieve key objectives of UN Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973: an end to hostilities; full access for humanitarian assistance; and a political process to address fully the legitimate demands and aspirations of the Libyan people, the spokesman said.
[Mangalorean] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
MONTREAL — Anti-war demonstrators gathered in Montreal and Toronto this afternoon to call for an end to armed conflict across the globe.
About 200 protesters marched through the streets of downtown Montreal.
Many carried signs protesting against Canada's involvement in Afghanistan and Libya.
Others wanted a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ivory Coast.
The Raging Grannies protest group performed songs calling for a more peaceful world for their grandchildren.
Several dozen protesters turned out at a demonstration in Toronto.
[CTV] MoreTuesday, 12 April, 2011:
The Apostoli Vicar of Tripoli said today he is more hopeful for peace in Libya now that a ceasefire has been declared. Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli said: “The ceasefire is the first step, then the two parties have to find some way of communicating to arrive at agreement on the transition.”
South African President Jacob Zuma, along with three other African leaders and representatives of the African Union, met Colonel Gadaffi yesterday, 10 April, in Tripoli. The delegation presented a peace plan which calls for: an immediate ceasefire, an end to the obstacles posed by the regime to the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Libyan people, protection for foreign citizens, and dialogue between the Government and the rebels in Tripoli on political issues. “The Christian Churches present in Libya want to support this process,” said Bishop Martinelli.
[ICN] More

Monday, 11 April, 2011:
(GlobalPost)--Diplomats in Libya are awaiting confirmation of the arrival in Tripoli of GlobalPost freelance contributor James Foley, an American, and the three other foreign journalists who were taken captive by Libyan authorities earlier this week.
Five days after the four reporters were captured by forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi near the eastern oil town of Brega, there has still been no direct communication with them. But officials at the Turkish embassy in Tripoli said they are in talks with the LIbyan authorities.
A Turkish official said that he hoped to have "good news" soon.
On Sunday morning a group of foreign journalists reporting from Tripoli were taken by government minders apparently to meet the four captured journalists. But the trip was canceled with no explanation given.
[CBS] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
The line is faint, almost muffled by noise of wind sweeping the rooftop in Benghazi, but over the crackling satellite link comes the sound of weeping.
A mother has confirmed her daughter is alive. Like many others in eastern Libya, she had no way of communicating with the outside world, except with a borrowed satellite phone. The rebels have lacked Internet and reliable phone connections for weeks, and still struggle to set up their own television station.
These shortcomings not only hurt their morale, as families suffer without news of their relatives; more vitally, fighters cannot talk to each other on the battlefield except with bullhorns and loudspeakers.
Many rebels have never seen their leaders give a public speech.
[The Globe and Mail] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
The British ambassador to the US told America it should not intervene to stop the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison, according to leaked diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph. Nigel Sheinwald told James Steinberg, the US Deputy Secretary of State, that he was "concerned" that the demands of victims' families were unduly influencing US policy.
His comments came during critical negotiations over whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the murder of 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103, should be switched to a Libyan jail to serve the remainder of his sentence.
Sir Nigel was Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser between 2003 and 2007 and played a key role, alongside the Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, in bringing Colonel Muammar Gaddafi back into the international fold.
[Telegraph] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
North Korea has ordered its citizens in Libya not to return home, a move apparently aimed at preventing the news of anti-government movements in the northern African state from spreading among its isolated people, a source here said Sunday.
The communist North has ordered its embassy in Libya to “obey the measures taken by the Libyan government” instead of sending people back home, the source said, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Some 200 North Korean doctors, nurses and construction workers are believed to be residing in Libya mostly for foreign currency earning purposes. Two North Korean doctors were recently hurt while working at a hospital in the southern Tripoli area amid bombardment by allied forces against the Libyan government, according to reports.
[Korean Herald] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister and active participant in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, said Sunday that the current stalemate in Libya “is not an option,” highlighting the uncomfortable gap between realities on the ground in the North African nation and the desire by the U.S., U.K, and France to get rid of Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
“We’ve got to keep in our minds what is our strategic objective, and it is to get a different form of government in place in which the people of Libya decide the future of Libya,” Mr. Blair said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program Sunday morning.
“What I see are signs, that anyone sensible realizes, that this cannot end in any other way that at some point an agreed process of change in Libya. So you know, whether we carry on for a long time or a short time, that’s what’s going to happen. The status quo is not the option,” Mr. Blair said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program Sunday morning.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
A delegation of African leaders said Sunday that their Libyan counterpart, Moammar Gadhafi, accepted their "road map" for a cease-fire with rebels, whom they will meet Monday. They met hours after NATO airstrikes battered Gadhafi's tanks, helping Libyan rebels push back government troops who had been advancing quickly toward the opposition's eastern stronghold.
The African Union's road map calls for an immediate cease-fire, cooperation in opening channels for humanitarian aid and starting a dialogue between the rebels and the government. AU officials, however, made no mention of any requirement for Gadhafi to pull his troops out of cities as rebels have demanded.
[WN] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
Hala Misrati once wrote romance tales about lost love. Now she's the ferocious face of Libya's regime, a star talk-show host on state TV lashing out daily against Moammar Gadhafi's enemies.
She railed against a Libyan woman who claimed to Western journalists she had been raped by Gadhafi militiamen, calling her a "liar" and suggesting she was a "whore." On live TV, Misrati grilled an arrested journalist for an hour with all the doggedness of a secret police interrogator.
"Say the things that you said in your recordings!" she barked at the journalist, Rana al-Aqbani, apparently referring to taped recordings of al-Aqbani's phone calls, as she tried to make her acknowledge that she sought Gadhafi's ouster. Al-Aqbani, a Tripoli-based journalist, has since disappeared.
[Sify] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
The violence in Libya is hitting close to home for one Lexington family. Relatives say they haven't heard from 39-year-old businessman Zeyad Ramadan since March 15th.
As reports of the current unrest in Libya continue, here in Lexington, Asma Ghoneim hopes to learn anything about her husband's whereabouts, missing while on a business trip in the capital city of Tripoli. Relatives in Libya tell her Ramadan, along with his brother Ghazi, and two other men, were arrested on March 19th. Ghoneim has not received any word from authorities about where they are.
"They are just two businessmen. No political affiliation whatsover," says Ghoneim.
Relatives say just days after arriving, the software company worker was arrested.
[LEX18] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
Benghazi, Libya - From a distance, Boubacar Mohamed Jibril could be mistaken for a rebel. Dressed in loose green combat fatigues and wearing a full beard, he certainly looks the part.
But the 65-year-old Benghazi resident says he is too old to be chasing the frontline. Instead, he has fenced off an area of Benghazi's seafront where he showcases weapons and ammunition collected from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
'Not everybody can be a rebel,' he says, standing among discarded mortar shells and spent bullets. 'But I had to do something to support the revolution. At first I wanted to fight, but then I realized I'm too old, and I don't really know how to use the equipment,' Jibril said. He does, however, know how to talk about it.
[M&C] MoreMonday, 11 April, 2011:
PARIS — The international contact group on Libya will meet on April 13 in the Qatari capital Doha, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Thursday.
France is trying "to convince the African Union to be present in Qatar next week because that's where the contact group is to meet on April 13," Juppe told lawmakers.
The AU did not attend the March 29 international conference in London that set up the contact group which is "charged with ensuring the political governance of the military intervention and the implementation of UN resolutions," Juppe said.
France wants members of the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) that is fighting Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's forces to attend a European Union foreign ministers' meeting next week ahead of the contact group.
[AFP] More

Sunday, 10 April, 2011:
AJDABIYA, Libya -- The front line for control of Libya moved to its easternmost point in three weeks on Saturday as forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi stormed this rebel-held town in a fleet of Toyota pickup trucks.
Rebels who swept in to defend Ajdabiya, 100 miles from the opposition capital of Benghazi, were hit by fire from pro-Gadhafi snipers and a rain of artillery shells. Street battles raged for hours inside the town, which was largely empty of unarmed civilians.
There was no sign of NATO aircraft during the battle though a rebel spokesman said aircraft had hit Gadhafi positions before dawn. Airstrikes on Gadhafi loyalists have been crucial to rebel military successes.
Libyan state television showed what it claimed were live images of Gadhafi supporters celebrating in the streets of Ajdabiya, though by nightfall rebels said that they had chased most of the loyalists out of town.
[Miami Herald] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
A delegation of African leaders, headed by South African President Jacob Zuma, are on their way to Libya in an attempt to mediate the crisis in that war-torn country, according to the South African foreign ministry. Zuma is reportedly expected to meet personally with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi as well as Libyan rebel groups in order to establish other truce.
However, other reports claim that Zuma is simply going to Libya to attend a meeting of the African Union (AU), which includes South Africa, Mali, Mauritania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
The South African foreign ministry statement said: The South African foreign ministry said: "The committee has been granted permission by NATO to enter Libya and to meet in Tripoli with the Libyan leader.
[IBTimes] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
RAF Tornados have destroyed seven tanks in Libya as air strikes there continue, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
The jets hit two tanks in Ajdabiyah and five in Misratah on Friday - areas which have seen fighting between rebels and Col Muammar Gaddafi's troops.
RAF Typhoons have also been involved in policing the UN-backed no-fly zone.
The MoD also said HMS Cumberland would return to the UK after HMS Liverpool took over its surveillance and embargo operations alongside HMS Brockelsby.
A spokesman said the Tornado GR4 planes used Brimstone missiles and Paveway IV bombs.
[BBC] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
DARNA, Libya (Reuters) - Abdel Hakim al-Hasady, a former Islamic fighter in Afghanistan, now recruits, trains and deploys 500 rebels fighting to topple Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.
He says he was once questioned for two months by U.S. agents in Pakistan for suspected ties to al Qaeda -- which he denies -- and was later imprisoned in Libya for three years.
The presence of Hasady and other Islamists among the rebels raises difficult questions for the United States and other Western powers, who want Gaddafi's overthrow but worry al Qaeda may establish a stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.
Gaddafi has accused al Qaeda of playing a direct role in Libya's unrest in a plot to destabilise the oil-producing, North African Arab country and set up a regional base.
[Reuters] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
Reporting from Benghazi, Libya—
Here in the gray courthouse, in offices once occupied by judges and government lawyers, the young demonstrators who sparked a revolt in eastern Libya have planted the seeds of a political movement.
Some are Islamists in clerical garb; others wear Nike shirts or longish hair and berets. They have formed civic organizations and charities and speak of building a parliamentary democracy.
For all of them, it is uncharted ground after nearly 42 years of authoritarian rule.
Under Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, political life was restricted to regime-controlled national congresses and local committees. Student unions, professional unions and charities were carefully watched. Pro-Kadafi paramilitary officers from "revolutionary committees" joined student and professional unions. Even other Arab countries, with authoritarian traditions, tolerated some opposition parties and civil society groups. But in Libya, such freedoms were nonexistent.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
MISURATA, Libya — Moammar Khadafy’s government brought foreign journalists to Misurata yesterday to show that its forces hold significant control over the only major city in western Libya still in rebel hands, but the trip suggested that their situation had if anything grown more dire after weeks of laying siege to the enemy’s stronghold.
Reporters were bused to the same intersection, more than a mile from downtown, where government officials took them about 10 days ago. Back then, it was to show the effects of a NATO airstrike. This time, it was simply as far as the tour could go before gunfire and shelling forced officials to turn around.
At one point, the journalists took cover amid gunfire. A Libyan soldier received a head wound in the shooting and was taken to a hospital.
[Boston] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
A private diplomatic mission to Libya by a former U.S. congressman, who wanted to meet Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and convince him to step aside, was paid for by two Houston businessmen whose firm brokers oil and gas deals in unstable countries.
The former congressman, Curt Weldon, who left Libya on Friday, after he failed to secure a meeting with Colonel Qaddafi and had to settle for talks with one of his sons, Saadi, told CNN on Thursday night his trip “was paid for by the team of Steve Payne and Brian Ettinger of Houston.”
[The Lede] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
WARSAW, April 9 (Reuters) - Poland refuses to join NATO's military campaign against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi because of Europe's "hypocrisy" and inconsistency over human rights, Prime Minister Donald Tusk was quoted on Saturday as saying.
Tusk, whose country assumes the European Union's rotating six-month presidency in July, said Europe risked creating an impression it only intervenes when oil supplies are at stake.
"Although there exists a need to defend civilians from a regime's brutality, isn't the Libyan case yet another example of European hypocrisy in view of the way Europe has behaved towards Gaddafi in recent years or even months?" Tusk told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper in an interview.
[Reuters] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
AJDABIYAH, Libya - A buoyant Muammar Gaddafi made his first television appearance for five days on Saturday and his troops engaged rebels in new fighting on the eastern front in Libya's civil war.
While fighting flared up again on the war's only active frontline, a Red Cross ship brought medical supplies to the besieged western city of Misrata, scene of bitter street battles, where conditions are said to be desperate.
Gaddafi's forces shelled the western outskirts of Ajdabiyah, launch point for rebel attacks towards the Mediterranean oil port of Brega.
[Jerusalem Post] MoreSunday, 10 April, 2011:
OKLAHOMA CITY — A Pulitizer Prize-winning journalist who was detained by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi says he feels guilty about his decision to remain in a Libyan city as fighting intensified because it may have led to the death of his young driver.
New York Times Beirut Bureau Chief Anthony Shadid became emotional Thursday as he described to an audience at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum how he and his three colleagues were threatened during their six-day captivity in March.
Shadid, who grew up in Oklahoma City, said he was wrong when he didn't heed warnings not to return to Ajdabiya or to leave sooner.
The journalists and driver Mohammed Shaglouf were pulled out of their car after driving into a checkpoint manned by Libyan forces.
Shaglouf is still missing.
[Wall Street Journal] More

Saturday, 9 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration and Libyan rebels are wrestling for control of $34 billion the Treasury Department seized from the financial holdings of Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
The Transitional National Council of Libya, the rebels' executive body, has raised pressure on senior White House and Treasury officials in recent weeks to make available at least some money to help address shortages of food and medicine caused by the military conflict with Col. Gadhafi's forces.
U.S. officials, though, say the funds, if not properly monitored, could wind up with Islamist elements hostile to the U.S., including al Qaeda.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — The US government hit Libya's prime minister and its oil and finance ministers with sanctions Friday, in a fresh bid to fracture Moamer Kadhafi's inner circle.
The US Treasury Department said it had frozen the assets of five senior Kadhafi aides, including Shukri Ghanem, the head of the country's powerful oil company.
It also targeted prime minister Baghdadi Mahmoud.
The US has frozen around $34 billion in Libyan assets since mid-February and has tried to use the unblocking of funds as a carrot for aides to defect.
"We will continue to expose and impose sanctions on senior Libyan government officials who choose to remain at Kadhafi's side," said US sanctions czar David Cohen.
[AFP] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — The rules for Libyan media were absolute: Don't print, broadcast or post anything bad about leader Moammar Gadhafi. Libyan journalists who crossed the line risked prison or death.
"It was as if Gadhafi was a prophet sent by Allah," editor Fatah Khashmi said. "He was free from blame and never made mistakes."
Less than two months after the anti-Gadhafi uprising broke out, journalists in the rebel-held east are happily shaking off the old rules and creating a media boomlet. At least half a dozen new publications have appeared in the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi, and a former state-run radio station now broadcasts the rebel cause.
[AP] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
Moussa Koussa, the Libyan defector currently in Britain, has told intermediaries he wants to join the rebels but they have rejected his overtures, the Daily Telegraph has learned. Mr Koussa, who is currently being debriefed by MI6, is keen to join the ranks of former officials from the government of Col Muammar Gaddafi who have switched sides, security sources say.
He is also thought to have received private medical treatment in Britain since his arrival last week.
Mr Koussa is said to have been in touch with Abdel Rahman Shalgham, the former Libyan ambassador to the United Nations.
However Mahmoud Shammam, a spokesman for the Interim Transitional National Council told the Daily Telegraph there had been no direct contact and added: “I don’t think the council is ready to deal with him.”
[Telegraph] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has declared a roadmap to end the war in Libya through measures that would include the withdrawal of Muammar Gaddafi's forces from some cities, but the Libyan rebels, who are dismayed at Turkey for not openly calling for Gaddafi's removal, remained critical, saying it is not enough.
Erdoğan announced the three-point plan at a press conference late on Thursday. According to the plan, which Erdoğan said would be discussed at a meeting by the international Libya contact group set up to guide the international intervention in Libya in Qatar next week, an immediate cease-fire must be achieved and Gaddafi's forces should retreat from besieged cities.
[Today's Zaman] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
Cairo/Benghazi, Libya - An estimated 10,000 people have been killed in Libya in recent weeks, said a spokesman of the rebels' Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC) on Friday.
About 2,000 people died in the capital, Tripoli, and Misurata, while 1,500 died in Zawiya, spokesman Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga said from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in the east.
'We will continue our revolution for one month, two months, if necessary, for one year,' he said. The International Committee for the Red Cross said it will send a team to the western city of Misurata by boat to investigate claims that snipers targeted children there.
[M&C] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
GENEVA — Snipers are targeting children in the besieged rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata, the U.N.' s children agency said Friday.
Hundreds of residents have been killed and wounded in the assault by Gadhafi's forces on Libya's third-largest city, and residents are running short of water, food and medicine.
"What we have are reliable and consistent reports of children being among the people targeted by snipers in Misrata," UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado told reporters in Geneva.
The information was based on local sources, Mercado said. She was unable to say how many children have been wounded or killed in this way.
[MSNBC] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will chair a meeting of the League of Arab States in Cairo next week as part of efforts to coordinate the international response to the situation in Libya, a UN spokesman said Friday.
The meeting at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo on Thursday will be led by its leader Amr Moussa and also be attended by other international and regional organizations.
Jean Ping, chairman of the Commission of the African Union; Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Conference; and Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign affairs chief; will attend.
[M&C] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
South African President Jacob Zuma will travel to Libya tomorrow as part of an African Union delegation to discuss a ceasefire with the country’s leader Muammar Qaddafi and rebel forces, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said in an e-mailed statement.
The delegation will meet with Qaddafi in Tripoli and with rebel leaders in Benghazi, and has been given permission to enter Libya by NATO, the statement said.
“Key on the Agenda of both meetings will be the immediate implementation of a ceasefire from both sides and the opening of a political dialogue between the two parties,” the statement said.
Before traveling to Libya, Zuma will attend an AU meeting on Libya in Mauritania, the statement said.
[Bloomberg] MoreSaturday, 9 April, 2011:
Brussels - The European Union has asked the United Nations to let it launch a humanitarian military mission to the besieged Libyan city of Misurata, an EU diplomat said Friday.
A United Nations' call is a prerequisite to launching the EUFOR Libya mission, which the bloc has been preparing since last week.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton wrote to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon late Friday 'telling him about the EU's readiness to act,' the diplomat told the German Press Agency dpa.
'It's an encouragement' for the UN to ask the EU to get involved, the source said.
[M&C] More

Friday, 8 April, 2011:
A Microsoft employee has been detained by Libyan authorities.
Khalid Elhasumi, Microsoft's country manager for Libya, has been held in Tripoli since March 19, Microsoft said in a statement.
Libya has been rocked by civil unrest for the past several weeks, with rebels fighting the government, led by Moammar Gadhafi. Gadhafi has asked President Obama to stop NATO-led airstrikes on Gadhafi's forces in Libya.
Microsoft says it has been working for the past two weeks with Elhasumi's family and international organizations to gain his release.
"We currently have no information about the reasons for his detention," Microsoft said.
[Seattle Times] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) - It has been almost two weeks since Eman al-Obeidy burst into our hotel in Tripoli, desperate for the world to hear her story of rape and torture. We had been trying since then to interview her in person and were finally able to speak to her Wednesday, against the explicit wishes of the Libyan government.
"You should not be allowed to do this," government spokesman Musa Ibrahim told me.
The interview with al-Obeidy was facilitated by Gadhafi's son Saadi and was subject to a government review. We asked al-Obeidy if she would be willing to come to Saadi Gadhafi's office. She agreed and Gadhafi sent a car to pick her up.
She and Gadhafi met privately before our interview, the first time the two had met. Gadhafi appeared shocked afterward. He commented on her strong character and willingness to challenge him when they disagreed.
[CNN] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
A freelance correspondent working for Boston-based GlobalPost is among four journalists taken prisoner by Libyan troops earlier this week, according to a spokesman for the international news Web site.
The organization Human Rights Watch contacted GlobalPost earlier today and told them witnesses saw its correspondent — James Foley of Rochester, N.H. — and three other journalists taken captive by pro-Gadhafi forces Tuesday afternoon on the outskirts of Brega.
“They haven’t been heard from since,” said GlobalPost spokesman Rick Byrne. He said the news organization last heard from Foley on Monday evening.
[Boston Herald] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
Reporting from Benghazi, Libya—
Salah from central Benghazi was on the line, sounding indignant.
Why was Benghazi so filthy? Was everyone so busy rushing to the front to fight that they couldn't clean up their own city?
Inside a makeshift sound studio, radio host Khalid Ali wearily rubbed his eyes. Voice of Free Libya radio — 98.9 on your FM dial — had just opened its caller lines for another round of hectoring.
"If they're not asking about garbage, they're complaining that people fire guns into the air all night long," Ali said, tapping his cellphone, which he holds next to a worn microphone when taking listeners' calls on the air. "Everybody has an opinion." Seven weeks into the rebellion, Voice of Free Libya is a centerpiece of the emerging rebel media, public relations and propaganda effort in eastern Libya.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
Four foreign journalists have been missing in Libya for several days after being detained and taken away by Libyan troops in the country's war-ravaged east, the Spanish national television said on Thursday.
One Spanish press photographer, one South African and two U.S. journalists are missing, the TVE1 channel said. The journalists' car was reportedly stopped by Libyan soldiers at a highway linking the eastern rebel-controlled town of Ajdabiya to the nearby Mediterranean port of Marsa-el-Brega on Monday, the TV channel said.
The car was set on fire and the journalists taken in an unknown direction, it said. The incident was witnessed by a security guard accompanying a New York Times journalist on an assignment in Libya, who was driving his car on the same highway, the TV channel said.
[Rian] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
Two British businessmen have been held in Libya's notoriously brutal prison system for more than three weeks, the family of one of the men said on Thursday. Asma Ghoneim, the wife of Zeyad Ramadan, 39, said he and his brother Ghazi, 40, were seized in a Tripoli flat where they stayed on business trips to Tripoli.
"Its very important that every knows they were not political. They were business on a regular trip to Libya," she said. "I appeal to the Libyan government to look into this. My husband was a diabetic and needs daily medicine. I am very worried about him." The Leeds-born brothers provided software to Libya's mobile phone companies.
Witnesses reported that state security agents burst into the flat on March 19. After several hours of questioning, the Ramadans and two Libyan visitors were lead away.
[Telegraph] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
AJDABIYAH, April 7 (Xinhua) -- NATO's planes flew over Ajdabiyah when doctors in the town's hospital were doing surgery on an anti-government militant. The fighters guarding the hospital picked up their weapons and jumped onto trucks with machine guns after they heard their colleagues shouting "the government troops are moving here."
Within half an hour, hundreds of cars rushed towards Benghazi as people feared their town would become the battlefield for the fifth time in nearly two months.
The sound of the rockets targeting the government troops alarmed the fleeing people that fights have returned to the town.
Naji, a man in his fifties, has already sent his five children to Benghazi, the base for the anti-government insurgents.
[Xinhuanet] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
Former Libyan energy minister Omar Fathi bin Shatwan said today that he felt he was better able to help the people of Misrata now that he had managed to escape from the port city which is being bomberded by Gaddafi forces.
Shatwan arrived in Malta on Friday on a fishing boat and was granted a visa on humanitarian grounds.
The former minister said he saw no future for the Gaddafi family in Libya.
Misrata, he said, was under constant bombardment. People were being shot at random and essential services, including the water supplies, had been targeted.
Shatwan said he would like to get aid to Misrata and felt he was better able t ohelp, politically, now that he had been able to escape.
[Times on Line] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
London, Asharq Al-Awsat- A leading member of the Libyan Transitional National Council has accused the Chadian Government of backing Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's regime against the revolutionaries for the purpose of preventing it from collapse. He said the Chadian president was trying to pay back an old debt he owes Gaddafi when the opposition tried to enter Ndjamena in February 2008. But the Chadian Government has denied these accusations vehemently saying they are baseless and seeking to destroy the historic relationship between the two peoples and announced it has closed its borders with Libyan to stop the infiltration of any Al-Qaeda organization elements to Chad, according to a senior official in Ndjamena.
The Libyan leader, who preferred not to be named for security reasons, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the talk about mercenaries from Chad as reported by some news agencies and satellite channels was not right "since what is happening is an intervention in the Libyan affair by the regime of Idriss Deby in support of Gaddafi. Its aim is to protect his regime from collapsing."
[Asharq Al-Awsat] MoreFriday, 8 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) - Libyan assets frozen by the United States as part of sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi and his top officials have now risen to more than $34 billion, the U.S. Treasury's top official for sanctions, anti-terrorism and money laundering said on Thursday.
David Cohen, who is nominated to take over as the Treasury's undersecretary secretary for financial intelligence, told a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing that European authorities have frozen a "substantial amount" of other such assets. He said the amount is difficult to gauge, but probably is less than the more than $34 billion frozen by U.S. authorities.
[Forex Yard] More

Thursday, 7 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya — The White House acknowledged Wednesday that President Obama had received another letter from Colonel Qaddafi. Officials refused to divulge the contents, but The Associated Press reported that it rambled for three pages before appealing for a cease-fire. The president did not respond but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that Colonel Qaddafi “knows what he must do.” She added: “There needs to be a cease-fire, his forces need to withdraw from the cities that they have forcibly taken at great violence and human cost. There needs to be a decision made about his departure from power.”
In the rebel-held city of Misurata in western Libya and on the eastern front with the rebels around the oil town of Brega, Qaddafi forces continued to hammer rebels with rockets, artillery and mortars, as rebel leaders expressed exasperation at the limits of NATO’s support.
[New York Times] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
The U.S. is monitoring the possibility of terrorist attacks originating in Libya, either from the forces of Muammar Qaddafi or rebels who may have associated with terror groups in the past, FBI Director Robert Mueller said.
Authorities are questioning people previously affiliated with the Libyan government and Libyans in the U.S. who may have information on threats against Americans, Mueller said at a House appropriations subcommittee hearing today.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to “make certain that we are on guard with the possibility of terrorist attacks emanating somewhere out of Libya,” Mueller told lawmakers.
[Bloomberg] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
Libya's rebel administration has said that it signed an apology for the Gaddafi regime's role in IRA attacks and the Lockerbie bombing under pressure from the British government, and that the document is the result of "misunderstanding".
After initially denying that the document existed, the revolutionaries' governing council acknowledged that its chairman, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, had indeed signed an apology on behalf of the Libyan people for Gaddafi's provision of semtex used in IRA bombings and for the blowing up of the Pan Am flight in 1988. It also promised compensation.
Amid division and confusion over the declaration, which some blamed on a translation mix-up, council officials said that the issue of the Libyan government's responsibility for attacks in the UK came up only because it was pressed on the revolutionary administration by the British.
[Guardian] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Three days of attacks by supporters of Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi have halted oil production in rebel-held fields in the country's east, a rebel spokesman said Wednesday.
The rebels had just begun exporting oil again after a weekslong hiatus in an effort to raise funds for their struggle against Gadhafi, who still controls the western half of the country.
The rebels have a deal to sell their oil from the port of Tobruk through the help of Qatar and use the profits to pay salaries and buy food, medicine and weapons.
"I think we will not depend on oil revenues in the coming stage because our production has been affected in this crisis," rebel spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga said.
Ghoga said armored vehicles attacked the rebel-held oil field of Messla on Monday and Tuesday and then a day later, the field of Sarir.
[AP] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. envoy has arrived in Benghazi to get to know Libya's opposition and discuss how the United States might help it meet its financial needs, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.
The visit by Chris Stevens, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, reflects a U.S. effort effort to deepen its contacts with the rebels, who are fighting a civil war against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces.
NATO-led air power is now maintaining the balance in Libya, preventing Gaddafi's forces from overrunning the seven-week old revolt but unable for now to hand the rebels outright victory.
While U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has twice met a top representative of the opposition Transitional National Council, the United States has not followed its allies France and Italy in formally recognizing it.
[Reuters] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
Turkey wants Moammar Gaddafi to step down as the ruler of Libya, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, in the wake of discussions with both Libyan government officials and representatives of the opposition.
“We are not in favor of the Gaddafi family’s rule continuing in Libya. A new administration should be set up in line with the Libyan people’s demands,” an official from the Turkish Foreign Ministry told the Hürriyet Daily News, a Turkish newspaper based in Ankara.
On Tuesday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Mahmoud Jibril, a leader of Libyan opposition member, in Qatar to discuss a possible ceasefire in Libya.
“We are looking for common ground, a starting point but both sides [in the Libyan conflict] have lots of objections,” a Turkish official said. “Our efforts aim to achieve an immediate truce, then a political negotiation between the parties and a new administration that will take power following an election.”
[IBTimes] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
DERNA, Libya -- Col. Moammar Gadhafi has depicted this coastal city of squat concrete homes and graceful blue harbor as the staging ground for an al-Qaida takeover of Libya.
A radical Islamic caliphate, Gadhafi claims, is based in Derna, inside rebel-held eastern Libya, and is directing the uprising against him.
That characterization draws a belly laugh from Mabrouk Salama, an Irish-educated chemistry professor who serves on the rebel leadership council in Derna.
"Al-Qaida? Here? Ha!" Salama said, shaking his head. "It's just Gadhafi's way of trying to scare America."
At the same time, a schoolteacher, Abdelhakim Hasadi, who has been described by Gadhafi as the leader of a radical Islamic emirate in Derna, has been allowed to run his own militia of some 150 gunmen who control security and checkpoints in the town. Among them are a half-dozen who fought in Iraq, including two who had contact with al-Qaida, according to a close friend and follower of Hasadi.
[Standard] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
Respected Harvard University Professor Harry Lewis has called upon Harvard President Drew Faust to censure Professor Michael Porter for bringing shame to the university over his work with Monitor Group.
The Cambridge-based consulting firm was co-founded by Porter and several of his Harvard colleagues. Monitor Group has come under unfavorable attention of the international news media over its work for Moammar Khadafy.
The Harvard Crimson broke the story about yesterday’s closed faculty meeting where Lewis confronted Faust over Porter’s business dealings with the Libyan dictator.
Lewis said: “Harvard rightly expresses its pride when a member of our community does something noble. I wonder if the University should not also express its shame when a faculty member disgraces the University.”
[Examiner] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
Kim Shively, an Anthropology professor at KU, has a lot of insight to offer on the current uprising in Libya against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, its dictator of 40 years, which is being supported by airstrikes by a coalition involving the U.S. and many of its allies.
Shively painted a portrait of what she thinks it has been like to live under the rule of a leader like Qaddafi. She said that the regime is unstable because Qaddafi himself is unstable. So much of the government’s decision making lies with Qaddafi alone.
He and his supporters have “control over channels of information” and institutions like education, allowing him to give his people his version of reality, his story of how the outside world is. He has sought to control all aspects of Libyan society. His rule has led to Libya being a “closed society.”
[Keystone Online] MoreThursday, 7 April, 2011:
The British were vocal proponents of international military intervention in Libya. David Cameron was the first Western leader to call unambiguously for a no-fly zone, and he later won accolades as an essential player in securing the U.N. Security Council resolution that implemented it. Then, Cameron’s secretary of state for defense, Liam Fox, became the first to acknowledge the unspoken truth that the real mission went beyond the U.N.’s stated goal of protecting civilians. “‘Mission accomplished,’” he said, “would mean the Libyan people free to control their own destiny. This is very clear — the international community wants [Moammar Qaddafi’s] regime to end.”
But while the Conservative PM and his cohorts are now leading the world in condemnation of Qaddafi, his Labor predecessors and much of the British elite were world leaders in Libya-toadying just a while ago.
[National Review] More

Wednesday, 6 April, 2011:
ZAWIYA, Libya—Almost one month after Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces routed rebels here in a bloody assault, this town 30 miles west of Tripoli offers a vivid example of what could happen to other contested areas should they fall back into government hands.
Government officials bused dozens of foreign journalists to Zawiya Tuesday, in what might have been an attempt to show that Col. Gadhafi has heeded President Barack Obama's call last month, in a speech in which the U.S. president mentioned Zawiya, to remove his troops from inner cities and allow free expression.
Instead, a picture emerged of severe repression and deep divisions.
At the entrance of town, walls that once bore antiregime slogans became a sea of whitewash with graffiti and posters glorifying Col. Gadhafi and his regime. A sole message of defiance, "freedom for Libya," survived.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
The Libyan rebel commander, Gen Abdul Fattah Younis, has accused Nato of standing idly by while pro-Gaddafi forces kill people in Misrata.
If Nato waited another week to intervene, the besieged city's people faced extermination, he told reporters in the de facto rebel capital Benghazi.
A Nato-led coalition mandated by the UN to protect civilians is enforcing a no-fly zone and attacking ground targets.
It accuses Gaddafi forces of sheltering weapons in civilian areas.
A tanker reportedly arrived at the eastern port of Tobruk on Tuesday to pick up the first consignment of oil to be exported from the rebel-held region.
[BBC] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — “One Libya, with Tripoli as its capital” is spray-painted on walls around this rebel city and glides off the tongues of opposition leaders. Moammar Gaddafi will fall in a week, they predict, two at the most, and they’ll build a new country then. But as weeks stretch into months and progress on the battlefield stalls, this rebel-held area of Libya is settling into its status as a de facto separate state.
Since the February uprising that ended Gaddafi’s rule here, schools and many businesses have remained closed. But police are back on the streets, hospitals are functioning and shops are slowly reopening. Behind the scenes, opposition leaders are feverishly courting international partners as they work to set up a political and economic system for a period of division that some quietly admit may stretch on indefinitely.
A tanker arrived in the rebel-held port of Tobruk on Tuesday to load oil for export, the first time that has happened in nearly three weeks.
[Washington Post] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
In an effort to distance itself from the strife in Libya, the Port of Houston Authority on Tuesday terminated an agreement to advise the North African nation on modernizing its ports.
In voting during their monthly board meeting to end the pact, some Port Authority commissioners said they didn't know about the deal until after it was done.
"It was signed in February 2010 without board approval," said Commissioner Janiece Longoria, who introduced the motion to abolish the memorandum of agreement with Libya.
In related action, commissioners voted to do away with the Port of Houston Authority International Corp., which was created a decade ago to help foreign ports in the interest of increasing business, according to Port Authority CEO Alec Dreyer.
[Chron] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
MI5 files reveal that the embassy run by Moussa Koussa, the Libyan defector, was involved in directing assassinations against Libyan dissidents in Britain. The files show that the security service believed they had “conclusive evidence” that the Libyan embassy, where Mr Koussa was the ambassador, was “directing operational and intelligence gathering activities against Libyan dissidents.”
The intelligence, related in Defence of the Realm, the official history of MI5, also says that Mr Koussa was reprimanded by Tripoli for failing to stop a dissident protest and was told that at least one of the demonstrators would have to be killed.
He subsequently told a newspaper reporter that the Gaddafi regime had decided to kill two dissidents in Britain, adding: "I approve of this."
[Telegraph] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
Britain’s overstretched air force will be asked to find more fighter jets, in spite of committing four extra Tornados for operations over Libya on Monday.
The request comes as Nato demands extra aircraft to meet a shortfall created after America pulled out the jets that had carried out more than 50 per cent of the ground strikes against Col Gaddafi’s forces.
“We will need more strike assets and that is being addressed,” said a Nato official. “Britain has stepped up to the mark with four Tornados but will have to do more.” Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, spent much of the weekend during a Middle East trip calling up defence ministers from across Europe asking them to contribute more aircraft, Whitehall sources said.
[Telegraph] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
(WASHINGTON) -- The FBI has been interviewing Libyan nationals in the United States in a security measure to gather possible intelligence useful to military operations and information about potential acts of terrorism and espionage. The effort has been taking place in 10 FBI field offices including Washington D.C., New York, Houston and Denver. According to FBI officials the effort is aimed at interviewing Libyan nationals who have U.S. visas and students studying here in the United States.
The effort is similar to FBI activities in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 called “Operation Darkening Cloud,” which used data-mining techniques to identify and map potential Iraqi spies in the United States.
[KBOI] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, April 5 (Reuters) - The Libyan government has appointed Abdelati Obeidi as its new foreign minister, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
Obeidi, who had served as deputy foreign minister, has been on a foreign tour to discuss solutions to Libya's crisis. Asked if he had been promoted to the top ministry job, another deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, said: "Yes, he has."
Obeidi replaces Moussa Koussa, once one of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's closest advisers and a former spy chief, who defected and flew to Britain last week.
[Reuters] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Fatah Central Committee is investigating reports that one of its members was involved in supplying arms to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, a spokesman said.
Rebel forces currently battling Gadhafi's regime said they seized Israeli arms smuggled into Libya. According to media reports, the Transitional National Council said Fatah Central Committee member Muhammad Dahlan was involved in sending the weapons.
Dahlan has denied the charge.
[Maan News] MoreWednesday, 6 April, 2011:
Published reports say CIA officers are at work inside Libya. But just what they are doing is not clear and, in keeping with practice, the CIA would not comment on the reports. The Obama administration has said it has not yet decided whether to arm the Libyan rebels. But, there is much the CIA may be doing in Libya short of that. Analysts say it should come of no surprise that the CIA is already at work in Libya. Reva Bhalla, Middle East analyst for the private intelligence firm, Stratfor, says gathering intelligence is the most basic function of the CIA.
"Obviously when you have a military campaign like this under way you’re going to need people on the ground, painting [identifying] targets for air strikes, [and] not only on the military aspect but just in trying to figure out just who is the opposition - who are they actually dealing with, are there any viable leaders who show the potential for unifying this very fractious country," said Bhalla.
[VOA News] More

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI — Eman al-Obeidy says the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi victimized her twice. First members of his militia kidnapped and repeatedly raped her. Then his state television network attacked her as a thief and a prostitute. But unlike most rape victims here, Ms. Obeidy, a law student, took her case to the international news media, forcing the Qaddafi security forces to drag her out of a hotel full of journalists as she screamed to tell her story. Thanks to the publicity in her first interviews since then, she may have gotten off easy.
Others in her situation, human rights advocates say, are typically confined for years in so-called rehabilitation facilities, subjected to unscientific virginity tests, deprived of any entertainment or education except lessons in Islam, and subjected to solitary confinement or handcuffs for any sign of resistance to authority.
[New York Times] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
Libyan state TV has shown what it said was live footage of Moamar Gaddafi saluting his supporters from a jeep outside his fortified compound in Tripoli.
The dictator briefly waved to his backers through the roof of his vehicle as bodyguards tried to prevent his supporters from mobbing him.
The appearance came as one of Mr Gaddafi's envoys shuttled around southern Europe in an effort to convince the international community a negotiated end to the fighting was possible.
Libya's deputy foreign minister, Abdelati Obeidi, is in Turkey for talks after visiting Athens, where he met Greek leaders.
Turkey has maintained regular contact with both sides in the conflict although it is playing a role in the international military operation in Libya.
[ABC] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya — Rebels fighting government forces in eastern Libya were bolstered on Monday by new diplomatic recognition and gains on the battlefield as a bid by the government to resolve the country’s crisis by replacing Moammar Gaddafi with one of his sons appeared to fizzle amid international skepticism. Italy became the third country after France and Qatar to recognize the opposition Transitional National Council as Libya’s legitimate government, and Kuwait said it expected to follow suit in the coming days.
Acting Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi arrived in Turkey for talks with its government, just a day after he delivered a message from Gaddafi to Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Athens.
Turkey and Greece, both NATO members, have said that they want to listen to proposals from both sides on a way to end the violence. Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas said after meeting with Obeidi that “there is mobility, and there is a chance, albeit small, for a politico-diplomatic solution.”
[Washington Post] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration dropped financial sanctions on Monday against the top Libyan official who fled to Britain last week, saying it hoped the move would encourage other senior aides to abandon Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the country’s embattled leader. But the decision to unfreeze bank accounts and permit business dealings with the official, Moussa Koussa, underscored the predicament his defection poses for American and British authorities.
Mr. Koussa’s close knowledge of the ruling circle, which he is believed to be sharing inside a British safe house, could be invaluable in trying to strip Colonel Qaddafi of support.
But as the longtime Libyan intelligence chief and foreign minister, Mr. Koussa is widely believed to be implicated in acts of terrorism and murder over the last three decades, including the assassination of dissidents, the training of international terrorists and the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
[New York Times] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
Italy on Monday became the third country to recognize the opposition Transitional National Council as Libya’s legitimate government, and Britain said it would supply communications equipment to rebels battling forces loyal to Moammar Gaddafi. Opposition leaders crossed paths with a Gaddafi representative pushing in Europe for a diplomatic solution that would allow Gaddafi or his sons to remain in power. Acting Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi arrived in Turkey for talks with that country’s government, just a day after he met with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Athens.
Turkey and Greece, both NATO members, have said they want to listen to proposals from both sides on a way to end the violence. Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas said after meeting with Obeidi that “there is mobility, and there is a chance, albeit small, for a politico-diplomatic solution.”
[Washington Post] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
Libya is ready to negotiate reforms such as elections or a referendum but the resignation of leader Muammar Gaddafi is non-negotiable, a government spokesman says.
"How Libya is governed, this is a different matter. What kind of political system is implemented in the country? This is negotiable, we can talk about it," spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told journalists on Tuesday.
"We can have anything, elections, referendums."
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Ibrahim said Gaddafi was "the safety valve" for the unity of the country's tribes and people.
"We think he is very important to lead any transition to a democratic and transparent model," he added.
Gaddafi meanwhile greeted supporters in his first public appearance since March 22 at his Bab el-Aziziya residence in Tripoli, which had been bombed by coalition forces two days earlier, national television said.
[SMH] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
ADJABIYA, Libya (AP) — Overwhelmed by fatigue, Ramzi Mohammed took a deep drag on his cigarette, leaned against the door of his ambulance and recalled the blur of the past six weeks. He's seen fighters torn apart by rockets. He's been shot at for trying to rescue rebel fighters. And three days before his wedding date, while he scrambled on the battlefield, supporters of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi killed his fiancee back home.
Like many other doctors across eastern Libya, Mohammed has traded the hospital ward for the front lines, taking immense risks to do what they see as their part in helping the revolt.
"I don't know how to use a weapon, so this is my way to fight for freedom," Mohammed, wearing scrubs, a lab coat and wire-rimmed glasses, said over the weekend during a break a few kilometers behind the front lines near the oil-refinery town of Brega.
[AP] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
(CNN) -- His story reads like a political thriller. Once a confidant of Moammar Gadhafi and then his sworn enemy, he led a band of Libyan exiles trying to overthrow the Libyan regime before being spirited in secrecy to the United States when things went bad. His name is Khalifa Haftar.
He has lived in Virginia for 20 years but now he's back in Libya, trying to knock the rebel force into some kind of shape.
CNN has spoken to several people who know Haftar well, and they agree on one thing: His role will be crucial if the opposition is to mount a serious military challenge to Gadhafi.
For Haftar it's personal. He has never forgiven Gadhafi for letting him rot as a prisoner of war in neighboring Chad after a disastrous military campaign in the 1980s.
[CNN] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
A British lawyer representing victims of the Lockerbie bombing is meeting Libya's revolutionary leaders in pursuit of evidence a senior rebel claims to have that Muammar Gaddafi ordered the attack.
Jason McCue, head of the Libya Victims Initiative, is also seeking "an apology from the Libyan people" for the blowing up of the Pan Am flight in 1988 and the country's supply of explosives used in IRA attacks.
McCue said he had been invited to Benghazi by the chairman of its interim governing council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who served as Gaddafi's justice minister. Jalil has said publicly that he has evidence of the Libyan leader's involvement in the Lockerbie bombing but has not elaborated further.
McCue is also seeking redress for 150 British families who were victims of IRA attacks.
"There are evidential issues, particularly on Lockerbie. Jalil has made indications that he has evidence linking Gaddafi to it. We've fought for years and never had that information. It's about getting that evidence [and] getting apologies which are worth their weight in gold to the victims," he said.
[Guardian] MoreTuesday, 5 April, 2011:
It’s going to take time before Moammar Gaddafi and his family are gone from power in Libya, and, frankly, the ending may not come until the dictator is assassinated by a member of his family or a Libyan military or security officer.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates delivered those messages to Congress last week as he repeatedly preached patience before the House and Senate armed services committees.
In contrast, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has remained the commander of the impatient crowd, those who want to plunge ahead militarily, ignoring lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan.
There also is a congressional Greek chorus, those Republican and Democratic politicians who now question President Obama’s decision to intervene and even his authority to act. They have forgotten that in late February and early March a rush of lawmakers called for a no-fly zone and protection for protesting Libyans.
[Washington Post] More

Monday, 4 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, April 3 (Reuters) - The Libyan government sent an envoy to Greece on Sunday to discuss an end to fighting, but gave no sign of any major climbdown in a war that has ground to a stalemate between rebels and forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi flew to Athens carrying a personal message from Gaddafi to Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou that Libya wanted the fighting to end, a Greek government official told Reuters.
"It seems that the Libyan authorities are seeking a solution," Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas told reporters.
But there was no indication on what Tripoli might be ready to offer -- beyond a willingness to negotiate -- to end a war that has become bogged down on a frontline in the eastern oil town of Brega, while leaving civilians trapped by Gaddafi's forces in the west.
[Reuters] MoreMonday, 4 April, 2011:
From makeshift beds inside a cruise-ship-turned-hospital, wounded residents of a besieged Libyan city told Sunday of daily shelling, looting and sniping by Moammar Gadhafi's forces and called for the end of the Libyan ruler's 42-year reign.
The ship, carrying hundreds from Misrata to Turkey for care, made a brief stop in Benghazi, where rebel youth gathered on the dock to welcome them and seek news from an embattled city that has been largely cut off from the world for weeks.
Dozens of men, many nursing gunshot wounds and missing limbs, lay on thin mats in the ship's hull, speaking of brutal government attacks and young rebels struggling to fend them off.
[NPR] MoreMonday, 4 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — With the rebels’ battlefield fortunes sagging, the three men in charge of the opposition forces were summoned late last week to a series of meetings here in the rebel capital. The rebel army’s nominal leader, Abdul Fattah Younes, a former interior minister and friend of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi whom many rebel leaders distrusted, could offer little explanation for the recent military stumbles, two people with knowledge of the meetings said.
Making matters worse, the men could hardly stand one another. They included Khalifa Heftar, a former general who returned recently from exile in the United States and appointed himself as the rebel field commander, the movement’s leaders said, and Omar el-Hariri, a former political prisoner who occupied the largely ceremonial role of defense minister.
“They behaved like children,” said Dr. Fathi Baja, a political science professor who heads the rebel political committee.
[New York Times] MoreMonday, 4 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI — Libya warned on Sunday that NATO-led air strikes could cause a "human and environmental disaster" if they damaged the country's massive Great Man-Made River (GMMR) project.
Built at a cost of 33 billion dollars, the GMMR extracts water from deep beneath the Sahara desert at a depth of between 500 and 800 metres (1,600 to 2,500 feet), purifies it and transports it to the coastal cities of the north where most of the population is concentrated.
Engineer and project manager Abdelmajid Gahoud told foreign journalists in the ultra-modern control centre on the outskirts of Tripoli, that a "human and environmental disaster" was on the cards if the GMMR was hit.
[AFP] MoreMonday, 4 April, 2011:
US and Egyptian special forces have reportedly been providing covert training to rebel fighters in the battle for Libya, Al Jazeera has been told.
An unnamed rebel source related how he had undergone training in military techniques at a "secret facility" in eastern Libya.
He told our correspondent Laurence Lee, reporting from the rebel-stronghold of Benghazi, that he was sent to fire Katyusha rockets but was given a simple, unguided version of the rocket instead.
"He told us that on Thursday night a new shipment of Katyusha rockets had been sent into eastern Libya from Egypt. He didn't say they were sourced from Egypt, but that was their route through," our correspondent said.
[Aljazeera] MoreMonday, 4 April, 2011:
BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY, 62, is such an inescapable figure in France — of mockery, admiration, amusement, envy — that he is by now unembarrassable. Making his mark young as a philosopher, he was satirized neatly by a critic with the words: “God is dead, but my hair is perfect.”
But in the space of roughly two weeks, Mr. Lévy managed to get a fledgling Libyan opposition group a hearing from the president of France and the American secretary of state, a process that has led both countries and NATO into waging war against the forces of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. It was Mr. Lévy, by his own still undisputed account, who brought top members of the Libyan opposition — the Interim Transitional National Council — from Benghazi to Paris to meet President Nicolas Sarkozy on March 10 ...
[New York Times] More

Sunday, 3 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya’s rebel military struggled Saturday to explain an apparent rift within its highest ranks while acknowledging its soldiers’ role in a mistaken NATO bombing of rebel columns the night before. The strike, which killed 13 rebels and injured seven, illustrated the hazards of conducting an aerial bombing campaign against a fluid and fast moving front line. Several cars and an ambulance were also incinerated, and opposition leaders said rebels may have been responsible for the bombing because they had fired their guns into the air in celebration.
“It was a terrible mistake, and we apologize, and we will not let it happen again,” said Abdul Hafidh Ghoga, vice president and spokesman of the opposition’s Transitional National Council.
[Washington Post] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya, April 2 (Reuters) - Libya's rebel council named what it called a "crisis team" on Saturday, including a new armed forces head, which will administer parts of the country it holds in its struggle to topple Muammar Gaddafi.
The team headed by Mahmoud Jebril will take its direction from the transitional national council, which remains the top rebel political body, council spokesman Hafiz Ghoga told a news conference.
Omar Hariri is in charge of the military department, with General Abdel Fattah Younes al Abidi, a long serving officer in Gaddafi's armed forces, as his chief of staff. Younes will be in charge of staff matters and field operations, Ghoga said.
Younes, a former Libyan interior minister, changed sides at the start of the uprising in mid-February but is distrusted by many in the rebel camp because of his past ties to Gaddafi.
[Reuters] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
Thirteen rebel fighters were killed in a NATO airstrike, the opposition's chief spokesman said Saturday, but the attack drew little anger against the West as fighters continued to rely on the alliance's warplanes to hold off Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.
The incident late Friday came as North Atlantic Treaty Organization warplanes struck government forces' positions on the edges of Port Brega, a contested city on the edge of rebel-controlled eastern territory.
Spokesman Abdelhafed Ghoga, calling the strike "a regrettable incident," made clear that the opposition wanted the West's help in fighting Kadafi.
"It was an error in the placement of the revolutionaries," he said. The loss of fighters drew unwanted attention to the rawness of the opposition's recruits. Some fighters and medical aides near the front lines outside Port Brega said Saturday that the rebels had probably let loose with celebratory gunfire after witnessing a NATO strike or capturing some Kadafi fighters.
[Los Angeles Times] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
Britain’s involvement with Libya veers between the breathlessly idealistic and the totally cynical, and frequently seems to be both at once.
Genuine fear of a preventable massacre pushed David Cameron into his support
for air attacks on Colonel Gaddafi’s forces outside Benghazi, and he may justifiably claim credit for swift and decisive action to stop this.
But between the lines of UN Resolution 1973 could be seen other, more questionable aims. A full-scale intervention in what quickly turned out to be a civil war is now poss-ible, unless we are very careful indeed. It is clear that the British Government at least thought about actions that might bring about the death of Gaddafi himself.
[Daily Mail] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
Libya's chief of intelligence is knocking down rumors that he is among the government insiders who have abandoned their embattled leader, Moammar Gadhafi.
Libyan state TV aired a phone interview with the official, Bouzeid Dorda, who denied that he defected and said he will not "betray the people or the leader."
He said he never thought to the leave the country and will remain steadfast with Gadhafi "despite everything."
Two members of Gadhafi's inner circle, including his foreign minister, have abandoned him in recent days as international airstrikes against Libya continued. While fighting between government and rebel forces appears to be drifting toward stalemate, coalition diplomatic efforts are focused on breaking Gadhafi's hold on power.
[Businessweek] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — A plan to sell rebel-held oil to buy weapons and other supplies has been reached with Qatar, a rebel official said Friday, in another sign of deepening aid for Libya's opposition by the wealthy Gulf state after sending warplanes to help confront Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
It was not immediately clear when the possible oil sales could begin or how the arms would reach the rebel factions, but any potential revenue stream would be a significant lifeline for the militias and military defectors battling Gadhafi's superior forces.
Rebel units were pushed back about 100 miles (160 kilometers) this week along the Mediterranean coast, but still held parts of oil-rich eastern Libya and the key city of Benghazi. In recent clashes, rebels displayed more firepower including mortars and rockets, but remain significantly outgunned.
[AP] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
Growing up in Fairfax as the son of Libyan dissidents, Hesham Mansur was well aware of the horrors of Col. Moammar Gaddafi’s government. But when the U.S.-born computer networking student registered for classes this semester at George Mason University, he had no idea that he would soon be in Libya, trying to overthrow that government himself.
“One of the Facebook comments was, ‘If you’re so brave, go do it yourself,’ ” Mansur, 27, said, recalling the flurry of Internet messages between Libyans abroad as the uprising gained steam. So on Feb. 28, less than two weeks after the protests began, he packed up medical supplies donated from Libyans in the United States, flew to Cairo and crossed into Libya by land.
He was not alone. For Libyans living in the United States, Germany, Sweden, Britain and elsewhere, the sight of their countrymen rising against Gaddafi’s 41-year rule inspired them to put their own lives on hold and race out to help.
[Washington Post] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
TUNIS, April 2 (Reuters) - Libya appointed a new central bank governor on Saturday, the official Jana news agency reported.
Mohammed al Zarroug Rajab was sworn in as the governor of the Libyan Central Bank, Jana said, adding his appointment would take effect immediately and his term would last until the next meeting of Libya's General People's Congress, or parliament.
Libyan state television broadcast footage of him taking an oath and shaking hands with Libyan officials.
Jana gave no other details about the appointment nor about his predecessor at the central bank, Farhat Omar Bin Guidara.
Last month a government official said Libyan Finance Minister Abdulhafid Zlitni had temporarily taken over as head of the central bank because Bin Guidara was abroad.
[Reuters] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
COLLOMBEY-MURAZ, Switzerland (AP) — Flames and smoke shoot up from the Libyan-owned oil refinery on the eastern tip of Lake Geneva, suggesting one of Moammar Gadhafi's outposts in Europe is still in business. As world powers tighten their military and financial grip around his regime, some governments are hesitating to freeze all of the assets controlled by the North African country's repressive ruler.
An Associated Press investigation has found that several European countries have accepted assurances from Libya's Tamoil petroleum company that none of its profits reach Tripoli. In return, Tamoil has been allowed to continue operating unchecked, despite the fact its parent company is on a United Nations sanctions list.
Officials at Tamoil's European headquarters didn't return requests for comment, but representatives at four of the group's national subsidiaries said they were abiding by the sanctions.
[AP] MoreSunday, 3 April, 2011:
In a clip from Libyan state television which is now on the YouTube website, the man can be seen pledging to turn himself into an “exploding bomb.”
Opening his coat, he tells the interviewer in Arabic: “I swear by Allah, we will turn into exploding bombs here in Britain or anywhere else, we will turn into exploding bombs, exploding bombs.”
The man also swears that all anti-Gaddafi protesters are “agents” and have been paid £500 each by the Qatari government.
The interview was apparently conducted and then broadcast by Libyan state television based in Holborn, London at a demonstration in Pall Mall against the international conference held on Tuesday.
The following day five Libyan diplomats from the embassy’s political wing were expelled from Britain for threatening members of the Libyan opposition.
[Telegraph] More

Saturday, 2 April, 2011:
Beijing - Germany and China on Friday issued a joint statement calling for renewed effort toward a political, non-violent solution of the conflict in Libya.
During a visit to Beijing, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and his counterpart Yang Liechi said there could be no military solution.
Both countries abstained from a UN Security Council vote two weeks ago that approved the imposition of a no-fly zone over the Middle Eastern country.
Yang said he was 'very concerned' by recent developments as the conflict in Libya between rebel forces and troops loyal to leader Moamer Gaddafi showed no sign of abating.
[M&C] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — The US military is poised to withdraw its combat jets and Tomahawk missiles from the air campaign against Libya's regime, as NATO allies take the lead in bombing Moamer Kadhafi's forces.
With NATO taking charge of the coalition effort on Thursday, US officials confirmed Friday that American fighters, ground-attack aircraft and cruise missiles would be pulled out of the operation starting this weekend.
The move follows pledges by President Barack Obama to quickly shift the lead to allies in the NATO-led coalition, with the US military playing a supporting role -- providing planes for mid-air refueling, jamming and surveillance.
"As we transition to a support role, our focus will be on providing enabling capabilities and not on strike capabilities," a US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
[AFP] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
The tempo of diplomatic and military action paving the way to a possible ceasefire in Libya's bloody civil war was gathering pace yesterday with reports that a son of Muammar Gaddafi was attempting to broker a deal.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who has appeared as a public and belligerent face of the regime during the weeks of violent strife, is said to be proposing an agreement which would limit the role of his father and include opposition figures in an interim government. Elections would be held in the near future and a "reconciliation process" put in place.
The details of the plan cannot be independently verified. However, according to diplomatic sources, senior officials in the West view Saif al-Islam, who supposedly wants to remain to play a "constructive role" in a post-war Libya, as a credible figure.
[Independent] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
Where is Eman al-Obeidy?
The Libyan woman has been missing since last week, when she was dragged away from a Tripoli hotel by Libyan officials after telling foreign journalists she had been gang-raped by forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Her family says al-Obeidy is still unaccounted for, despite assurances by the regime that she has been released.
Al-Obeidy's claims, bruises and screams were captured by reporters and broadcast around the world, saddling the Gadhafi regime with a disturbing symbol of its abuses and offering up a powerful rallying cry for the opposition, which is now calling the 26-year-old lawyer a hero and demanding her release.
Across the Internet, campaigns to secure al-Obeidy's freedom have caught fire. Dozens of Facebook groups are cropping up to support her, and one petition, by the online organizing group Avaaz.org, is collecting signatures to urge the Turkish government to negotiate al-Obeidy's safe release, as the country's diplomats did with four New York Times reporters last month. The petition, "Turkey to Libya: Free Iman!," had more than 330,000 online signatures and counting by early this afternoon.
[AOL News] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Sens. John MCCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman(I-Conn.) called for a shift in Libyan policy that would designate Muammar Gaddafi’s ouster as the mission’s explicit goal.
“As President Obama has rightly and repeatedly insisted, a successful outcome in Libya requires the departure of Gaddafi as quickly as possible,” the Senate duo wrote. “It is not in our interest for Libya to become the scene of a protracted stalemate that will destabilize and inflame the region.”
McCain and Lieberman both promoted the expansion of U.S. and NATO airstrikes in the days ahead to “pave the way for the Libyan opposition to reverse Gaddafi’s offensive and to resume their quest to end his rule.”
“We cannot guarantee the success of the Libyan revolution, but we have prevented what was, barely a week ago, its imminent destruction. That is why the president was right to intervene,” the duo wrote.
[Talk Radio News] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
AJDABIYA, Libya -- Something new has appeared at the Libyan front: a semblance of order among rebel forces.
Rebels without training - sometimes even without weapons - have rushed in and out of fighting in a free-for-all for weeks, repeatedly getting trounced by Moammar Gadhafi's more heavily armed forces. But on Friday only former military officers and the lightly trained volunteers serving under them were allowed on the front lines. Some were recent arrivals, hoping to rally against forces loyal to the Libyan leader who have pushed rebels back about 100 miles (160 kilometers) this week.
The better organized fighters, unlike some of their predecessors, can tell the difference between incoming and outgoing fire. They know how to avoid sticking to the roads, a weakness in the untrained forces that Gadhafi's troops have exploited. And they know how to take orders.
[Forbes] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON, April 1 (Xinhua) -- The United States has an aid team preparing to go inside Libya, a senior U.S. official said Friday.
Mark Ward, deputy assistant administrator of U.S. Agency for International Development, told a Washington briefing that the agency has a disaster assistance response team (DART) in place, and will be ready to go inside the Northern African country once the situation there permits it.
Ward refused to say how big the team is, but noted it could start small and will grow once assessment of the ground calls for it. He said most of the agency's DART teams around the world are between a couple of people to a couple of dozen, and in rare cases, it can go up to over 100.
Once the team goes inside Libya, their "first priority" will be to establish contact with the opposition, especially people with knowledge on how to transport aid to cities where those things are urgently needed.
[Xinhuanet] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
Christians in Libya hope the revolt against dictator Moammar Gadhafi could result in new freedoms for believers.
Freelance journalist Tino Qahoush just returned from Benghazi and said Christians there believe the time is right to bring gospel literature and other resources into Libya.
Libya's Christians only make up about 3 percent of the country's population.
Meanwhile, the international coalition supporting Libya's rebel forces may provide them with arms and training.
The international no-fly zone has not kept Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's army from driving the rebels back.
Now, some question if the anti-government forces are strong enough to beat Gadhafi.
[CBN] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
Fallen back on the ground beside the open door of his jeep was a young rebel whose eyes were open, but unseeing.
As friends hauled him up by his heavy limbs and ran to the back of the ambulance, witnesses said he had shot himself through the chest while dismounting with the safety catch off on his AK-47 rifle.
The accident was another chaotic mishap illustrating the poor training which has plagued the rebel uprising and undermined their attempts to break through to western Libya.
The rebellion's core of trained military has in the past two days sought to gain control over the chaotic rabble of revolutionaries which has veered from fearlessness to incompetent panic.
[Telegraph] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
The biggest danger to Moammar Gadhafi is not the rebel forces struggling to march on his capital. It's more likely to be the crumbling of the remaining, fragile support for his regime.
That is what makes the defection of Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa a heavy blow. He was part of a small circle of key insiders and family who have the most to lose if Gadhafi loses power. As those figures peel away, it makes the majority of his supporters, who have much looser ties, less certain that Gadhafi is capable of staying in power.
The Libyan leader relies most on his immediate family and his tribe, the Gadhadhfa. But his tribe is a relatively small one among the estimated 140 tribes that predominate life in the North African nation of about 6 million. So he vitally needs the support of others, whose allegiance he has bought over the years by handing their members top political and security posts.
[Kansas City] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
The recent remarks by Adm. James Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, alleging "flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah" among Libyan rebels are indicative of a disturbing trend in much of the discussion -- and reporting -- on Libya over the past several weeks. Ambiguous statements linking Libya and al Qaeda have repeatedly been made in the media without clarifying or providing appropriate context to such remarks. In many instances, these claims have been distorted or exaggerated; at times they have simply been false.
The admiral's comments -- and the subsequent headlines they've engendered -- represent a new level of irresponsibility, constructing false connections, through use of highly obscure and equivocal language, between al Qaeda and Libyan pro-democracy forces backed by the Transitional National Council. The latter is itself led by a group of well-known and respected Libyan professionals and technocrats. Even more far-fetched is the admiral's mention of a Hezbollah connection, or "flicker" as he put it.
[Foreign Policy] MoreSaturday, 2 April, 2011:
MOSCOW (AP) — Only a year ago, Russia's dominance as a global energy supplier was threatened by low gas prices and a reputation as an unreliable trade partner. But with the world now shaken by Japan's natural disasters and uprisings across the Middle East, the country is back at the heart of the market — and cashing in.
Russia's state-owned monopoly Gazprom rushed to sell extra gas to European nations when their supplies from Libya ran dry during the escalating violence there. It will also gain from selling energy to Japan, where an earthquake and tsunami have shut down 12 gigawatts of nuclear capacity.
Gazprom told the Associated Press it is willing to ship more gas to Japan and is now in talks with several power-generating companies such as Tokyo Electric to sell them liquefied natural gas.
Japan's struggle to keep radiation from leaking at the Fukushima nuclear plant, meanwhile, has caused a deep rethink in the role of nuclear energy, particularly in Europe.
[Alaska Journal] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
UNITED NATIONS—The U.S. was locked in a new row with Libya on Thursday over Col. Moammar Gadhafi's attempt to name a former Nicaraguan foreign minister as his ambassador to the United Nations.
Former Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, who has since defected, informed member nations but not the U.N. secretariat that Libya wants Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann to succeed Abdel Rahman Shalgam as its envoy, according to U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq.
Mr. Shalgam and his staff at Libya's U.N. mission broke with Col. Gadhafi in January to back the rebel cause.
Since then, Col. Gadhafi has struggled to find a representative at the U.N. after failing to get Ali Treki, a former Libyan foreign minister, appointed to the post.
On Thursday Mr. Treki became the second high-profile Libyan official to defect in as many days.
[Wall Street Journal] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
Arab Banking Corp., a lender part- owned by the Central Bank of Libya, used a branch in New York to borrow at least $5 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve as credit markets seized up in 2008 and 2009.
The bank, then 29 percent-owned by the Libyan state, drew $1.1 billion from the Fed’s so-called discount window in October 2008, including $450 million during the week when hundreds of financial firms borrowed a record amount of emergency funding from the U.S lending program, according to data released by the Fed today. Arab Banking Corp. also owed about $4 billion to the Fed under other bailout programs in the fall of 2009, data released in December show. The U.S. government has since frozen assets linked to the regime of Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi and engaged in air strikes against his military forces as they battle a rebel uprising in the North African country.
[Bloomberg] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
CHICAGO — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan reiterated his defense of Moammar Gadhafi on Thursday, calling the embattled Libyan leader a friend and Muslim brother who's lent the movement $8 million over the years.
Farrakhan, speaking at a rare news conference, railed against the media and said Gadhafi isn't the monster being portrayed by Western governments.
The 78-year-old minister criticized the U.S. government and President Barack Obama — whom he also called a brother — for launching military action against Libya without justification. He accused Americans of just wanting Gadhafi out of the picture to secure oil interests.
"I love Moammar Gadhafi, and I love our president," Farrakhan told several hundred cheering supporters at the Nation of Islam's headquarters.
[WRAL] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON, March 31, 2011 – NATO has taken sole command of international air operations over Libya, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced in Stockholm today.
NATO has all the assets in place for Operation Unified Protector, including forces for the arms embargo and no-fly zone and actions to protect civilians and civilian centers, Rasmussen said.
The operations are taking place under the auspices of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.
Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola of the Italian navy, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said the alliance has gradually taken over command of these operations from U.S. Africa Command.
“This decision followed a constructive debate among NATO political and military authorities, and has been taken by the alliance in a remarkable short lap of time,” he said.
[Defence] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The biggest danger to Moammar Gadhafi is not the rebel forces struggling to march on his capital. It's more likely to be the crumbling of the remaining, fragile support for his regime.
That is what makes the defection of Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa a heavy blow. He was part of a small circle of key insiders and family who have the most to lose if Gadhafi loses power. As those figures peel away, it makes the majority of his supporters, who have much looser ties, less certain that Gadhafi is capable of staying in power.
The Libyan leader relies most on his immediate family and his tribe, the Gadhadhfa. But his tribe is a relatively small one among the estimated 140 tribes that predominate life in the North African nation of about 6 million. So he vitally needs the support of others, whose allegiance he has bought over the years by handing their members top political and security posts.
[AP] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: "The Anointed One's" epic fall from grace continues tonight as the Obama White House struggles to address some of the most pressing issues of our time.
Now concerns over America's economic situation and fears over the growing crisis in the Mideast have now pushed President Barack Obama's approval rating to an all-time low. Now according to a brand-new Quinnipiac University poll, voters now disapprove of the job that the president is doing, 48 to 42 percent.
And with his support across the political spectrum crumbling, there is no question that 2012 is officially in play for the Republican Party. Now take a look at this. Fifty percent of those polled say the president does not deserve a second term, and that nine-point gap is the largest it has been since he took office in January of 2009. Additionally, if the election were held today, an unnamed Republican challenger would defeat our incumbent president by one percentage point.
[FOX News] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — Libya's rebels must pledge to hand the Lockerbie bomber over to US custody in return for any long-term US recognition as their country's legitimate government, a US senator said Thursday.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer urged US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a letter to "condition any long term support or recognition" of Moamer Kadhafi's foes "on a public, enforceable" promise of extradition.
Schumer said the goal of getting Libyan agent Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi in US custody was "so that he may be tried and convicted in an American criminal court."
Al-Megrahi is the only man convicted over the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988, which killed 270 people.
Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds in August 2009.
[AFP] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
He is the man Britain kicked out in 1980 for advocating killing Libyan dissidents living in London, but over 30 years on Musa Kusa is back. His presence in the UK is a necessary political evil.
The former spy master is a plum prize for Britain in PR terms, sending the message that support for Colonel Gaddafi is crumbling at home.
The Libyan foreign minister's resignation and defection to Britain will buoy the rebels and may act as a catalyst for others to jump ship.
And what Mr Kusa knows is gold. He can provide information on Col Gaddafi's military capabilities and the mindset of those around him.
But, and it is a big but, this is the man accused of masterminding the Lockerbie bombing which killed 270 people.
[Sky News] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
If it were up to Sanad Elfirjani, he'd still be in Libya, helping the effort to oust Moammar Gadhafi.
The 27-year-old Libyan-American recently returned to his home in Orland Park after fighting in the country he grew up in. He followed his 60-year-old father, Ibrahim, who left Illinois late last month.
For both of them, two of an unkown number of Libyan-Americans returning to their homeland, the goal is the same: "to go and kick [Gadhafi] out of Libya so we can all have out freedom back."
"What we are calling for right now," Elfirjani said, "is to either support the people over there with equipment or recognize them as an acting government."
Elfirjani lived in Libya with his mother and sister until age 19, when they fled in 2003 for Egypt and then the United States. Before he recently returned to Libya, his mother made him promise not to be on the front lines with his father.
[NBC Chicago] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
WASHINGTON — The United States said Thursday the defection of Libya's foreign minister Mussa Kussa would provide critical intelligence about Moamer Kadhafi's mental state and military plans.
As British officials debriefed Kussa after his flight to London late Wednesday, the White House also reiterated a senior official's earlier assessment that his decision was a major blow to Kadhafi's government.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor hailed a "major defection and a significant blow to the Kadhafi regime."
"Mussa Kussa is one of Kadhafi's most trusted aides who can help provide critical intelligence about Kadhafi's current state of mind and military plans.
[AFP] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
A bipartisan group of senators, working with the Obama Administration, is drafting an authorization resolution for the mission in Libya.
Sen. John McCain said Thursday he is working with Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass, GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., to make sure any resolution they develop contains "language that can receive an overwhelming vote in the Senate. It would not be a good signal, otherwise."
The group has "not yet decided" whether the resolution will be a symbolic measure, known as a "sense of the Senate" resolution, or something binding.
The group is also working with the Administration. "We want to try pass something that they can be supportive of," said McCain, top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.
[FOX News] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
American statesmen have always experimented with the use of limited military means to support foreign policy interests that are important, and worth engaging American power, but not vital. From the Barbary wars (fought against the Barbary States, which included parts of modern Libya) to gunboat diplomacy in Asia to the many military interventions over the past few decades (Grenada, Lebanon, Somalia, the no-fly zone over Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo), the United States has often tried to find ways to use its military yet not engage in all-out war. Some were more successful than others, but in all cases, the central task was to find the balance between the goals we sought and the means we were willing to deploy. The time we didn’t ask questions about the costs and simply escalated the means, we ended up in Vietnam.
The tendency for a president is to be pushed to achieve a decisive victory, no matter the costs, no matter whether the interests at stake are vital or secondary.
[CNN] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
KHORUM, Libya -- The grieving mother sat on the ground rocking her 2-month old daughter under a blanket on her lap, crying softly and accepting the soft words of condolences from neighbors.
Nizha Abdel-Salam and her family say her 18-month old son Sirajuddin al-Sweisi was killed when debris pierced the wall of their home as NATO airstrikes hit an ammunition near their village of Khorum early Tuesday morning.
"The house shook and there was so much dust everywhere we couldn't see in front of us," she said.
The family's account of the child's death could not be independently confirmed. The Libyan government says more than 100 people have been killed by airstrikes since the international campaign began on March 19. It says the number includes civilians and military personnel, but it has not provided a breakdown.
Government officials have struggled to provide solid evidence of civilian deaths and have not given straight answers when asked by journalists for details to back up the claims.
[Seattle PI] MoreFriday, 1 April, 2011:
GARYAN, Libya — In a small Libyan town long suspicious of Muammar Gaddafi's rule, people watched in awe as Western warplanes roared into view this week and bombed a nearby army ammunition dump.
Just weeks ago, the town of Garyan, perched in the rocky slopes of Libya's Western mountains, sided with anti-Gaddafi rebels and announced its opposition to the central government.
Its revolt was swiftly quashed and anti-Gaddafi graffiti wiped out, but dissent is still bubbling underneath the surface.
The government took a group of foreign reporters there on Wednesday to highlight what it described as extensive damage inflicted by Western air strikes on civilian areas. Unlike other similar outings, where journalists are usually greeted by crowds of fervent Gaddafi supporters, Garyan appeared subdued and -- when government minders were not looking -- some locals quietly challenged the official line.
[MSNBC] More